What better representation can there be of racism than of a six-pointed Star of David, the traditional representation of the Hebrew people, in a garish yellow color with the word “Jude” written across in mock-Hebrew script? If the Jews in Germany were not alarmed at the antisemitic propaganda started in the early 1930s, if they thought Kristallnacht was just a one-off, the forced identity badges that so obviously singled them out for persecution, left no doubt of Germany’s stance.

On this day, Mary 29, in 1942, on the advice of his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Hitler ordered all Jews in Paris to wear easily seen yellow “Jude” badges on their outer clothing.

Goebbels’ idea was not particularly new. A French newspaper at the time noted “The yellow star may make some Catholics shudder … It renews the most strictly Catholic tradition.” The singling out Jews had a long history long before Hitler: as early 807 CE Abbassid caliph Haroun al-Raschid  forced all Jews in his land, what is now modern-day Iraq, to wear a yellow belt and a tall, cone-like hat. Similar identification measures were taken by France, Britain and Austria in the 1200s. Whether Hitler knew it or not, Germany was continuing a long tradition of antisemitism.