The Holocaust
The Holocaust , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic
state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory. Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds of the population were killed. Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men. The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Nazi Germany
years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which the inmates were subjected to slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen (deployment group) murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.
state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory. Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds of the population were killed. Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men. The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Nazi Germany
years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which the inmates were subjected to slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen (deployment group) murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.
Nazi Concentration Camp Badges
- Red triangle: political prisoners (Social Democrats, Communists, Freemasons, anarchists and other "enemies of the state")
- Green triangle: people considered criminals in most societies
- Blue triangle: Foreign Forced Laborers
- Pink triangle: homosexual men and other sexual offenders.
- Purple triangle: Jehovah's Witnesses, Bible Student movement members
- Black Triangle: mentally retarded, alcoholics, vagrants, the habitually "work-shy", or prostitutes.
- Brown triangles: Roma or Gypsy
- Two superimposed yellow triangles: Jews