A lot of people are saying they're european jews, but it's really a group of jewish people who ended up mostly in northern europe due to fleeing persecution for generations. Then, in ww2 almost all of them died and now they account for less than 3% of all jewish people in the world. I only have a few relatives on my dad's side as they're ashkenazi, my family tree largely stopped at ww2.

Also, ashkenazis can often look super duper aryan like myself. Which creates an interesting dynamic, as I've had many people say anti-semitic things to me assuming that it would be in good company given my appearance, seemingly ignorant that some german jews still exist.