Anti-Semitism has existed throughout the world for many thousands of years. Modern history too has not been altogether kind to the world's Jewish population with political and social activities directed toward the Jews in Europe and the United States of America. Anti-Semitism came to a head in Europe shortly after the National Socialists (Nazis) came to power in 1933, in Germany. Anti-Semitism became official policy. The property of Jews was legally seized, and concentration camps were set up in which Jews were executed, tortured, or condemned to slave labor.

After the outbreak of World War II, Germany demanded that governments of other European countries take up anti-Semitic programs. Massacre, systematic execution, and starvation were used to eliminate about six million Jews, including two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, by the end of the war.

I was haunted by these atrocities as I travelling through Europe in 1995. Reminders of the Holocaust included Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, the burnt synagogue in East Berlin as well as the bullet holes in the Jewish quarter. Perhaps the most chilling of them all was the visit to the concentration camp near Dachau in Germany.