In his book, The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon W. Allport describes prejudice as a ladder with several rungs, or levels. As people 'climb' up the ladder of prejudice, increasingly negative actions result. While studying the Holocaust, see if you can identify how the Nazis and their followers climbed the ladder of prejudice and determine whether those same negative actions are present in our world today. Such negative comments are usually the result of stereotyping creating an oversimplified opinion, idea, or belief about that group of people. The next step up the ladder of prejudice involves avoiding the group of people that has been stereotyped.
Avoidance leads to lack of contact with the group and ignorance about the people involved.
Discrimination takes many forms, from denying someone a job to segregation, which means separating a person from the rest of society. The attack is usually the expression of the anger or resentment that have built up through the first steps of prejudice. This final step in the ladder of prejudice has been present in society since the earliest days.