Shattered Youth in Nazi Germany: Primary Sources from the Holocaust

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power in the 1930s changed life dramatically for all people living in Germany. Hitler used propaganda, fear, and brutality as his main weapons. Jewish children faced strong anti-Semitism in their schools and on the street, and saw their families ripped apart. Non-Jewish children deemed undesirable suffered a similar fate. Aryan children were forced to enter Hitler Youth groups or endure humiliation. Told through the words of teenagers, author Linda Jacobs Altman uses primary sources to explore the destruction of childhood in Nazi Germany as the Holocaust took shape in Europe.