After the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, assaults on the civil liberties of Germany’s Jewish population grew. Jews were no longer allowed membership in professional organizations, and they were barred from marrying people of Aryan “descent.” Many saw their German citizenship revoked and their legal protections disappear. The civil liberties that were first established during the emancipation of Jews in the nineteenth century vanished quickly. This document, a letter of complaint sent by the head of the local NSDAP chapter in Hesse to the Lord Mayor [Oberbürgermeister] of Frankfurt am Main, suggests that Germans began to accept the Nazis’ perception of Jews as a physical contaminant. The author reported that some citizens in Niederrad were traveling inconveniently long distances to far-flung swimming and bathing areas, because the ones near them were “continually being used by Jews.”

The restrictions on which facilities Jews could use were regulated at the local level. After 1935, many cities and towns enacted bans on Jews in public facilities. Frankfurt’s administrative authorities eventually complied with these complainants’ requests and issued a regulation barring Jews from using public swimming pools in the city.