Yes. Without long-standing prejudices against the Jews it would have been virtually impossible to demonize them in way that the Nazis did and to try to exterminate them. From a social and political point of view, one cannot simply pick on
any group and exterminate it.
It has often been said that antisemitism is as irrational as hating people with red hair, but of course 'redheads' have not been demonized and persecuted.