Holocaust Genocide

The Holocaust took place from 1939 to 1945 and involved the genocide of more than 6 million Jews, and more than 11 million people in total. This systematic mass murder occurred after the rise of Adolf Hitler and under his reign of a totalitarian state of government. Of the victims, more than 1.5 million were children. While most people focus on the killing of the Jews, the Holocaust also saw the death of others who were deemed 'inferior', including Soviets, Romanis, Polish people, disabled people, homosexuals, religious and political opponents, and others.
 
The Holocaust genocide started as simple discrimination, as seen in the Nuremburg Laws that were enacted shortly after Hitler became chancellor of Germany. These laws stated that Jewish businesses could not be operated and that Jews were to be considered less than equals, stripped of their rights, and pushed out of their homes. The goal was to turn the Third Reich into an ethnically pure state where racial and other superiority would breed the 'master race' that Hitler and the Nazi party believed should be present in order for the world to successfully move forward. Nazi beliefs were founded in fascism and anti-Semitism, and it didn't take long for the discrimination to turn to murder.
 
First, Jews and other inferiors were forced from their homes, moved to crowded ghettos, subject to imprisonment, hard labor, starvation, exposure, and disease. They were held under curfews or unable to leave at all, and those who could not work for the Germans under forced labor were deemed 'useless', including many young children that were 'just another mouth to feed'. Some children were killed at birth while others died due to exposure, starvation, or disease. Many more were murdered, either by shooting, being placed in the gas chamber, or torture that led to their deaths.
 
The Third Reich eventually created camps, to which they moved their prisoners for various reasons. Some were forced labor or transit camps. Others were designed for prisoners of war. The most notable camps, however, were the concentration and extermination camps. These camps are where people were taken specifically to die. They were either killed upon arrival or forced to live in squalor and face torture and medical experimentation until they died or were killed deliberately by Hitler's men who were in charge of the camps. Today, the Holocaust genocide is one of the largest black marks on history and there are many anti-Semites that are trying to deny its existence. With the death of more than 11 million, however, it is a little difficult to ignore.