Judaism, is not only a religion, it's also an ethnicity. (historically I think) (Not sure about that, but I'll gladly listen to an explanation on why it's not)
I want to ask this question because 2 of my grand parents hide during the war, but they did not seem to be jews in a proper sense, since I never saw them or their family practice Judaic rites. They knew how to talk yiddish though.
I was asking myself this question, not to doubt their motives to hide during WW2, but to understand how people denounced jews: did they just point the finger at people who "looked" like jews? But if they don't practice their religion, and if their skin is white, how did they recognize a jew at the time? Does that mean people were sent to death camps while they weren't jewish? I know there weren't only jews who were sent, but also gypsies, but were there precise directives as who to send to those camps, or was is a the discretion of the Nazi officers ?
I admit that they could have told me more stories about this era and what they could remember of it, but they didn't have time to and I wanted to ask here if you had a clue.
I'm not a conspiracist by the way, so please refrain from contributing to such non sensical theories (especially the negationist ones).
I'd like to refer you do this post I previously made on the topic.
I want to ask this question because 2 of my grand parents hide during the war, but they did not seem to be jews in a proper sense, since I never saw them or their family practice Judaic rites. They knew how to talk yiddish though.
They were probably just secular. There were a number of Jews who identified (and were identified by others) as Jewish without necessarily being religious, just as today. Speaking Yiddish (as a native language) in particular was a major marker of being Jewish.