What does 'Political and Cultural Context' mean?
Political context refers to the government system and political views that exist during the time the novel is set, and how these government policies and laws influence the characters and the world around them. Cultural context refers to the beliefs and values of people, and why a society behaves the way they do.
What was life like for Jewish people during World War II?
Adolf Hitler was the leader of a political party called the Nazis who ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. World War Two started when Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland in 1939. In 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators intended to murder every Jew in all the countries they controlled during the Second World War. They put Jews onto trains which took them to extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Gas chambers were built at these camps, where people were murdered. In other places, the Nazis and their collaborators built labour and concentration camps where prisoners were worked to death or died due to the appalling conditions.
How did the Nazi Party control culture and religion in Germany?
Hitler's picture was everywhere - simple slogans were used to introduce Nazi ideology to the German people:
The Nazi Party controlled what German people saw and heard, as well as the religion they practiced. Censorship of newspapers, radio, cinema and the theatre was enforced. Any media that talked about anti-Nazi ideas or even other ways of life, were censored. Only books which agreed with the Nazi point of view were allowed, and all other books were banned. Many books were publicly burned from May, 1933.
Hitler believed that religion was a threat to the Nazis control over people's minds. The Catholic Youth League was broken up, Catholic priests were arrested and religious teaching was banned. A Protestant Reich Church, with Nazi bishops, was established, and non-Nazi Catholic priests and Protestant pastors were sent to concentration camps.
