September 15, 1935, exactly ninety years ago today, marked a pivotal and ominous moment in world history.
On this day, Nazi Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws - two laws that dramatically altered the legal and social status of Jews in Germany. The first law stripped Jews of their German citizenship, severing their rights and sense of belonging. The second barred them from interacting with non-Jewish Germans, forcing them into isolation and dehumanization.
It is essential to note that these laws did not remain confined to Jews alone. They were later extended to target Roma, Black people, and other minorities. What began as legal decrees became the building blocks of mass arrests, imprisonment, executions, and the machinery of genocide that culminated in the Holocaust. These laws were not neutral - they became instruments of hate as they methodically and brutally codified exclusion and discrimination.
On that day, the Nazi Reichstag met in Nuremberg to convert hatred into law with two statutes: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor stripped Jews of citizenship, banned marriage and intimacy between Jews and “Aryans,” and used ancestry, instead of principles, values, or conduct as the determinant of rights.
These were not isolated decrees but the culmination of years of marginalization, teaching an entire nation to accept legal discrimination as normal.
The police were not neutral enforcers but willing participants, monitoring marriages, arresting people accused of “race defilement,” and collaborating with the Gestapo. The Nuremberg Laws would have been powerless without police institutions to enforce them.
Fortunately, today there is a large contrast between the police during the pre-Holocaust era and those of modern day Germany. Although problems of racism or extremist infiltration do still occur, today’s police are sworn to uphold the constitution, protect equal rights, investigate hate crimes, and defend diverse communities.
After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, for example, German police increased protection of Jewish institutions and disrupted extremist plots. The police, once symbols of exclusion in Nazi Germany, were now tasked with enforcing inclusion in today’s democratic Germany.
In the United States, the Rutgers University Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience is at the forefront of implementing educational and training initiatives that embed Holocaust lessons into modern policing. “Operationalizing Never Again: Not on Our Watch,” is an executive training program developed by Rutgers University’s Miller Center and the University of Virginia. This initiative equips law enforcement leaders with tools to address antisemitism, bias, and human rights dilemmas.
In April 24, 2025, more than 60 leaders in law enforcement from across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Africa, along with members of the Global Consortium for Law Enforcement Training Executives (GCLETE) joined 80 Holocaust survivors and young students from around the globe in a powerful march of the living from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day. They marched in remembrance of the past and in defiance of modern-day hate and extremism, as they marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Hitler’s camps and all of Europe from Nazi Germany.
For decades, the March of the Living has brought generations of young people, educators, and leaders to Holocaust sites, especially Auschwitz and Birkenau, to learn firsthand about Nazi atrocities during WWII.
At the 90-year anniversary of the passage of the Nuremburg Laws, we believe there are three urgent areas of responsibility. First, understanding the Present as It Is: in Germany and beyond, we are witnessing an ecosystem which uses intellectualized language like “ethnopluralism” to promote segregation and exclusion. Far-right figures are discussing “remigration,” a euphemism for expelling people with migrant backgrounds, even German citizens. Such revelations sparked mass pro-democracy demonstrations across Germany.
Second, Naming the Tactics: unlike the crudeness of 1930s propaganda, today’s extremists use rhetoric of “identity,” “security,” and “tradition” to mask exclusionary policies. These narratives slowly shift cultural norms until intolerance feels like common sense.
Third, Facing the Data: extremist violence in Germany rose by 23% in 2024, mostly from the far right. Antisemitic incidents also spiked: more than 5,000 were recorded in Germany in 2024, and over 9,300 in the U.S. Both are record highs. Antisemitism is a warning sign: it begins with Jews but ultimately threatens society as a whole.
Far right and nationalist parties gained momentum in the 2024 European elections, including the Netherlands, France, and elsewhere. These are democratic outcomes, but they must be contested democratically because minorities suffer first when the political center shifts toward exclusion.
At the same time, we are seeing democratic resilience: Mass protests against extremism, court cases challenging hate groups, and government actions such as the banning of extremist publications. Germany is attempting to defend democracy within the law, and in doing so maintain this crucial balance.
We believe there are five concrete steps we can take to ensure Nuremberg’s lessons are actualized: Defend Equal Citizenship: Citizenship must remain indivisible and based on commitment to democratic values, not ancestry; Invest in Truth: Counter extremist narratives with education, media literacy, and strong investigative journalism; Enforce the Law Consistently: Democracies must act decisively against intimidation, violence, and attempts to dismantle equality; Stand with the Targeted: Protection and solidarity must come from the wider society, not only from those under attack; Cooperate Across Borders: Since extremist movements operate internationally, democracies must collaborate in intelligence, accountability, and prevention.
90 years ago in Nuremberg, hatred was turned to law. In was only after the end of WWII, in 1945 and 1946, that Nuremberg became the site of the post-war trials – the Nuremberg Trials - where leading Nazis were prosecuted and crimes against humanity were defined, affirming individual responsibility for atrocities. The same city that legalized exclusion became the place that codified accountability.
The purpose of the March of the Living and the Rutgers University Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience is not only remembrance. It is the cultivation of moral responsibility: understanding the depths of hatred humanity is capable of and working actively to combat antisemitism, racism, and intolerance in the present.
Education, memory, and moral vigilance are interconnected tools we must implement to resist the resurgence of extremism that remain an ever-present danger to free and democratic societies.
Paul Miller is the founder of the Rutgers University Center on Policing and Community Resilience.
Stephan Kramer is the President of the Agency for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia, Germany.
Watch The Lessons & Legacy Webinar Marking 90 Years to the Nuremberg Laws:
https://www.motl.org/marking-90-years-since-nuremberg-laws-the-lessons-and-legacy/
Written in collaboration with March of the Living