The Holocaust
WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?
The Holocaust was the systematic killing of European Jews who lived in areas that were controlled by Nazi Germany in World War II, as well as the persecution and murder of other groups of people. Millions of Jews lost their lives in purpose-built extermination camps and concentration camps; more than a million were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units); while the squalid ghettos claimed the lives of thousands more.
HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE KILLED?
No exact figure of how many people died in the Holocaust exists, though it is estimated that approximately six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany and collaborators of the regime during the Holocaust, as Hitler was determined to expunge the world of all Jews, whom he viewed as “sub-human”.
The Nazis also persecuted other groups of people either because they were also seen to be racially inferior or for other reasons, such as their sexual orientation. Between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti (pejoratively called ‘gypsies’) were killed during the Holocaust, along with millions of Slavs in
