Nationalization campaign

These operations took place with the goal of modifying "the school curricula, with the bilingual teaching requirement and the introduction of the subjects of history and geography of Brazil, in addition to the Portuguese language".

Among the goals of the period was to consolidate the profile of what the government deemed the "ideal Brazilian": white, Catholic, of Portuguese descent and a good worker.

In Rio Grande do Sul, they were significant, as the state had received several immigrants in the first decade of the 20th century, due to agreements between Brazilian authorities and the Jewish Colonization Association.

[6] Among other charges, Jews were accused of forming international gangs, with the aim of bringing 4,000 immigrants illegally onto Brazilian soil, as well as being violators of women.

Restrictions on individual freedoms were announced: need for an authorization to travel within the country; seizure of books, magazines, newspapers and documents, with the destruction of part of the historical memory of immigration; and eventual imprisonment of those who did not speak Portuguese.

In August 1942, in Pelotas, the streets of the city were taken over by an angry mob, which violently attacked commercial business owned by German-Brazilians and German immigrants.