We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
![John Perry, a movie photographer with Unit 129, films GIs of the 290th Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division, and 4th Cavalry ... [LCID: sc116]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/074cf38a-6408-4da5-8177-c64eea275e3a.jpg)
On December 16, 1944, the German military launched the “Battle of the Bulge.” It was a last-ditch German military counter-offensive against the Allied armies in the West. Hitler hoped that the German counter-attack would surround the British and American armies and stall the Allied offensive against Germany. By early January 1945, the German military effort had failed. The Battle of the Bulge cost the Reich some 100,000 casualties and tremendous losses in military equipment.
![Women survivors huddled in a prisoner barracks shortly after Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz camp. [LCID: 31450b]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/8fdec1b8-47fa-40f1-9a27-06e7262bad5e.jpg)
Learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust
![Blanka Rothschild holds one of her prewar family photographs. [LCID: athbr039]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/11721704-922d-4af9-8e09-16ab9e4123c5.jpg)
Explore a timeline of events that occurred before, during, and after the Holocaust.
How and why was the Holocaust possible?
