Eleanor Roosevelt once said " No one can make you inferior without your consent." This is exactly what people have tried to do to the Jews: persecute them, and make them feel inferior. Jews all over the world have been persecuted for many centuries. Many people have the misconception that Jews "are a danger to the society." The movie Schindler's List highlighted the most notorious act of persecution of the Jews. They have been persecuted since the 15th century, and are still being persecuted today. These persecutions led to a major decline in the Jewish population because so many Jews were killed for their religion. .
Jews have been on a continuous roller-coaster of being accepted and then being hated. Whenever Jews start to feel largely accepted and gain influence in society, someone perceives them to be a threat and widespread persecution resurfaces. The middle class people were afraid the Jews were going to gain power over the economy, and this is what brought about anti-Semitism to begin with. Other than the fact that people were afraid of the Jews, another reason for the persecution of Jews was the lack of knowledge. People were uneducated about Jews, and just believed whatever people told them. "Nazism from the first had been essentially a revolt of the Know-Nothings. . . and it aimed at nothing less than the annihilation of the German intelligentsia." Even though the Nazis targeted all the Jews, some managed to escape. Many poets, musicians, and artists survived because they fled to other countries. .
In the early 15th century, the Jews were being persecuted by the Christians. "In the wake of the Christian reconquest of Spain, Jews were persecuted, killed, forced to convert, and finally expelled in 1492." .
The most infamous persecution of the Jews occurred in the 1940's in Germany in association with World War II. Millions of Jews were killed during this time. The Nazi party was held responsible for this persecution.