Jews who were married to non-Jews had a greater chance of surviving

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. In Germany, Jews in "privileged mixed marriages" were exempt from some anti-Jewish laws. All intermarried Jews in Greater Germany were generally exempted from deportation during the Holocaust until early 1945, which enabled 90 percent to survive. However, they faced strong pressure from Nazi authorities to divorce, which would end the protection for the Jewish partner. A famous event is the 1943

Rosenstrasse protest Rosenstrasse (or Rosenstraße) is a street in Berlin. It may more specifically refer to: *Rosenstrasse protest Rosenstrasse (or Rosenstraße) is a street in Berlin. It may more specifically refer to: * Rosenstrasse protests, street protests, Be ...

, in which non-Jewish women protested in Berlin after their Jewish husbands were arrested. It is unclear whether this action prevented the deportation of their husbands.

Effects

Ban on intermarriage

The 1935

Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...

banned marriage between Jews and those of "German blood". Existing marriages were not dissolved. In the

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...

, marriages between Jews and Germans were banned upon the German invasion in March 1939, but it was possible for Jews and ethnic Czechs to marry until March 1942.

Exemptions

In Germany, marriages between a Jewish woman and a "German-blooded" man in which children were raised without Jewish faith were considered "privileged mixed marriages". Jewish women in such marriages received better rations than other Jews, and were exempted from a variety of Nazi decrees. Even "non-privileged mixed marriages" brought important privileges, such as the Jewish partner's right not to be deported. In the Netherlands, all intermarried couples were exempt from deportation until September 1942, at which point Jewish men without children were no longer exempt. The families had to register with the authorities to receive the exemption. In the

Slovak State Slovak may refer to: * Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'') * Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group * Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages * Slovak, Arka ...

and the

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...

, intermarried Jews were mostly exempt from deportation. Even if exemptions from deportation did not exist, Jews in mixed marriages often received help from non-Jewish relatives enabling them to hide and survive.

Other forms of persecution

Instead of being deported, many intermarried Jews in greater Germany were instead drafted into forced labor battalions with

Organization Todt Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projec ...

. During the 1943

Fabrikaktion (, 'Factory Action') is the term for the roundup of the last Jews deported from Berlin, beginning in 27 February 1943. Most of the remaining Jews were working at Berlin plants or for the Jewish welfare organization. The term ''Fabrikaction'' was c ...

, many intermarried German Jews were arrested. None of them were deported; some historians have argued that this outcome was the result of the

. In 1943, those Jews whose marriages had ended were ordered to be deported by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

; as a result, in January 1944, some 1,000 Jews were deported to

Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination cam ...

. Most of them perished after being transported to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. In January 1945, the exemption from deportation was revoked and many intermarried Jews were deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto. However, most of them survived the war. In some cases, the Gestapo would arrest intermarried Jews or their non-Jewish spouses on fabricated charges, often as a pretext to steal their property.

Pressure to divorce

Intermarried families faced strong pressure to divorce, especially those in which the non-Jewish partner was female. The non-Jewish partner often faced loss of a job or property due to

Aryanization Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...

. From the fall of 1944, many non-Jewish partners in mixed marriages were drafted for forced labor. In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, some Czech men married to Jewish women were sent to a forced labor camp and promised release if they agreed to divorce. In Greater Germany, the divorce rate has been estimated by historians between 7 and 10 percent.

Statistics

In Amsterdam, intermarried Jews had a 59% lower risk of dying than those who were not intermarried. By September 1944, 98 percent of surviving German and Austrian Jews were in mixed marriages, according to official statistics. More than 90 percent of intermarried Jews from Greater Germany survived the war.

Benjamin Frommer Benjamin Frommer (born 1969) is an American historian, focused on history of Central Europe in 20th century. His work has concerns topics of genocide and ethnic cleansing, collaboration and resistance, transitional justice, and Central/Eastern E ...

estimates that most intermarried Jews in Bohemia and Moravia survived the Nazi occupation, if they were not divorced or widowed.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, intermarried families contended with the attitudes of other Jews and Jewish organizations that disapproved of intermarriage.