Attack on Misinterpretations

People mostly think this because they're in a somewhat Germanic area and the technology seems like it's around WW2 era. Though I have to say in the later point-- it isn't. It's more WW1. Trench warfare like you saw at the start of the Marley is what WW1 was known for. Not WW2. The country Marley is battling with at the beginning of the arc, as well, seems to be a stand-in for the Ottoman Empire, which dissolved in the 1920s largely as a result of losing the war. Compare the soldiers of this 'Mid-East alliance' with WW1 era Ottoman soldiers:

Now, AoT’s world is VERY different from our own, but with these two facts, it’s pretty certain here that this story is around the 1910s our time. It’s WW1, NOT WW2. 

But let’s also make it clear here that Eldians are not Jewish.

We know the past of the Eldians through Ymir. 

They were Germanic people. Barbarians, as we know them, though the word only means ‘not Roman’ technically. Pretty distinguishable from the armor and the tusk cups. They are not Hebrew. Here’s a historical rendition of Germanic peoples, so you can get what I mean.

In fact, the ancient Germans are associated with the word Barbarian because, like I said, it means not Roman, and they were the ones the Romans were most fighting with.

Marley came from the Romans.

You know what a Roman headpiece looks like. It’s very distinguishable. They were Romans. 

Hell, they’re still ‘Italians.’ You can see it in the food, though that’s more stereotypical than anything else. During the festival they were eating pizza, cannolis, and ice cream (which wasn’t an Italian invention but was introduced to Europe through Italy). You can see it in the names, too, though it's not absolute. Eldians tend to have Germanic names, like Braun or Jaeger, whereas in Marley we see Nicolo & General Calvi.

Not only are Marleyans not German, they aren’t even close to WW2 Germany. They are not trying to get revenge on anyone; they are just an imperialist country continuing to invade others for natural resources, as seen by the Mid-East alliance, as well as victims of their imperialism like Onyankopon and Yelena. They are imperialists, and rather than specifically trying to eradicate Eldians, they are strangely known for treating Eldians better than other countries-- Udo even says as much, knowing so because he was from a Mid-East nation (as you remember, he could speak the language of one of the Mid-Eastern soldiers). This is because Marley has a use for Eldians as cannonfodder and has a vested interest in treating them better so they can manipulate them into joining the military. Obviously, this never happened in history, especially not with Jewish people during the Holocaust- As such, there is no AoT equivalent to Auschwitz; no concentration camps that Eldians are systematically exterminated in, no gas chambers or ovens that were the big thing that set the Holocaust apart from other genocides. 

If anything, Marley’s imperialist behavior is more akin to America than anything else-- Likely because this is a world where it seems the Roman empire never truly crumbled. 

So, we’ve established here that AoT does not take place in WW2. It’s in WW1. And the genocide is happening worldwide, but mostly in Italy. Against Germanic people. It has nothing to do with Jewish people.

The reason why people think this, however, is because their understanding of genocides mostly start and stop at the Holocaust. They see ghettos, and they assume that the Eldians must be Jewish people. This is incorrect, too. If you know anything about how genocides happen, Isayama seemed to be very deliberate in just ticking all the boxes. 

There are 10 stages of genocide.

http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide/

Classification / Symbolization / Discrimination / Dehumanization / Organization / Polarization / Preparation / Persecution / Extermination / Denial

Those are official. I learned them in school, that’s how I know them. Isayama is clearly aware of them and uses them outright, and somehow this has been mistaken for the Eldians being a stand-in for Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Things like armbands (symbolization) and ghettos (organization) are both literally stages of genocide. Not just the Holocaust. Any genocide. I’ll use the armband specifically. For some reason people think that this only happened in the holocaust. However, that’s wrong. Jewish people didn’t even wear an armband then, they wore yellow Star of David pins. If you google ‘genocide armband’ the first thing that actually comes up is the Bosnian genocide. Bosnians were kept in ghettos and forced to wear white armbands. 

http://www.srebrenica.org.uk/what-happened/history/white-armband-day/

The genocidewatch source also mentions another example; Cambodians targeted by Pol Pot were forced to wear blue scarves. 

One final thing I want to argue about, too, is that they must be Jewish because of the specific things hurled about them ‘controlling the world,’ because for some reason people seem to think that only Jews have ever been targeted for seemingly oppressing others, despite the fact that that’s what the Tutsi were specifically targeted for. They also have other insults hurled against them that Jewish people do not. They are all considered potential bombs; a suicide bomb threat. That’s, in fact, the main reason for people continuing to lock them up. They are scared that they’ll turn into titans and attack them. The previous oppression is only resentment, their continued oppression is from the constant danger, an argument that sounds far more like what Muslim people deal with, particularly today with Palestinians and Uighurs, who are both locked in ghettos in very much the same way. 

(Also also, I’ve heard it argued that for some reason despite all this, Isayama should have made some big declaration against Japanese imperialism... But Japan is not a good country in this story. It’s also imperialist, but it’s half a world away, has very little bearing on the plot, and we already have a country that shows imperialism is bad. So... Why should he have to, when the story isn’t even about the horrors of WW2?)