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.
![Map titled "Jewish Executions Carried Out by Einsatzgruppen A" [LCID: 200509wu]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/4912b059-5630-4ec5-b3c8-172fe908f148.jpg)
![Jews carrying bundles of possessions before their deportation from the Kovno ghetto. [LCID: 10687]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/1d5950dc-d9a7-47e4-903c-c3c135c46ef1.jpg)
![German forces enter Aachen, on the border with Belgium, following the remilitarization of the Rhineland. [LCID: 70032]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/4d587734-0984-4f9f-9d7d-5e2b5e87dacc.jpg)
![German troops parade through Warsaw after the invasion of Poland. [LCID: 80487]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/6b473ced-71b7-474b-9519-969ed787dda8.jpg)
![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)
![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)
