Jewish
civilians, Warsaw,
1943
Copy
of a German photograph taken during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto
(Image courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)
The
Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal event in twentieth-century history:
the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation
of European
Jewry
by
Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
Jews were the primary victims 6 million were murdered.
Gypsies, the handicapped, and Poles were also targeted for
destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons.
Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents,
also suffered grievous oppression and death
under Nazi tyranny.
