Holocaust Encyclopedia

Jews from Subcarpathian Rus get off the deportation train and assemble on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. May 1944.

Introduction to the Holocaust

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933. They believed that the Germans belonged to a race that was "superior" to all others. They claimed that the Jews belonged to a race that was "inferior" and a threat to the so-called German racial community.