The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933. They believed that Germans were "racially superior." They claimed that Jews were "inferior" and a threat to the so-called German racial community.
![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)
![Map titled "Jewish Executions Carried Out by Einsatzgruppen A" [LCID: 200509wu]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/4912b059-5630-4ec5-b3c8-172fe908f148.jpg)
![At a rally, members of the Hitler Youth parade in the formation of a swastika to honor the Unknown Soldier. [LCID: 85513]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/cdadf487-50d7-4b0c-a912-ce6d9001f52a.jpg)
![Illustration from an antisemitic children's primer. [LCID: 10640c]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/4c6348d1-d3e6-4be3-aae5-b12761f4f20a.jpg)
![Storefronts of Jewish-owned businesses damaged during the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom. [LCID: 4315]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/ed400cf5-3397-4a1f-8cec-2ece2e7a90e7.jpg)
