Emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe

Members of the Sturmabteilung installing a sign on the front window of a Jewish-owned store in Berlin on 1 April 1933, as part of the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses , which the Nazi Party claimed was in response to the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott . The sign reads: "Germans! Defend yourselves, do not buy from the Jews!" Between 1933 and 1945 , a large number of Jews emigrated from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe . This exodus was triggered by the militaristic antisemitism perpetrated by the Nazi Party and by Germany's collaborators , ultimately culminating in the Holocaust . However, even before the genocide itself, which began during World War II , the Nazis had widely sponsored or enforced discriminatory practices—by legislation, in many cases—against Jewish residents, such as through the Nazi boycott of Jewish-owned businesses . Although Adolf Hitler and the German government were initially accepting of voluntary Jewish emigration from the country, it became difficult to find new host countries, particularly as the 1930s were marked by the Great Depression , as the number of Jewish migrants increased. Eventually, the Nazis forbade emigration; the Jews who remained in Germany or in German-occupied territory by this point were either murdered in the ghettos or relocated to be systematically exploited and murdered at dedicated concentration camps and extermination camps throughout the European continent.