According to a recent study, German children who grew up in the Nazi era continue to possess negative views towards the Jews, Associated Press reports.
Published on Monday, an investigation done by American and Swiss researchers dug information from the German General Social Surveys conducted in 1996 and 2006. The polls reflected the views of 5,300 Germans on different social issues, especially their thoughts about the Jews.
These people came from 264 towns and cities across the country, where the influence of the anti-Semitic propaganda varies.
Results suggest that those born in the 1930s, who had attained Nazi education during their school years, have the strongest anti-Semitic opinions, even half a century after the Nazi rule.
During Adolf Hitler's regime from 1933 to 1945, the Nazi propaganda brainwashed all Germans to discriminate against the Jews. The dictator ordered numerous mass killings and brutal treatments towards the Jewish people.
This tragedy was clearly documented in many World War II files, including the famous diary written by a young Jewish girl, Anne Frank.
Nazi schools included the anti-Semitic propaganda in all of their class subjects and educational activities.
"It's not just that Nazi schooling worked, that if you subject people to a totalitarian regime during their formative years it will influence the way their mind works," said University of Zurich's Hans-Joachim Voth, one of the authors of the study. "The striking thing is that it doesn't go away afterward."
The researchers also found out that there is just a slight difference between the extremities of the anti-Semitic views of Germans born in the 1920s over those born in the 1940s.
"The extent to which Nazi schooling worked depended crucially on whether the overall environment where children grew up was already a bit anti-Semitic," added Voth. "It tells you that indoctrination can work, it can last to a surprising extent, but the way it works has to be compatible to something people already believe."
The study also considered the influence of anti-Semitism on each era, since Jews were already discriminated way before the Nazi's rule.
