Holocaust Victims

When most people think of Holocaust victims, they think of the more than 6 million Jews who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi party during Hitler's rule of Germany. However, there were a number of other victims that were affected by this event, including the survivors who managed to make it out of the Holocaust after the Allies invaded in 1945. In addition to the Jewish community, however, Nazis also targeted a variety of people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, political ideology, behavioral issues, and other grounds that they deemed necessary. The Nazis killed more than 11 million and persecuted millions more, including:
 
-Jews
-Polish, Russians, and other Slavic people
-Gypsies
-Homosexuals
-Jehovah's Witnesses
-Communists and Socialists
-Mentally and Physically Disabled
-The Elderly and Children
 
The Nazi ideology was rather simple, albeit totally disagreeable to many: if people weren't of racial superiority, in support of the Nazi party, and useful to the Nazi goals in turning Germany into a super power, they were useless. They killed many people just because they were 'extra mouths to feed', including many elderly and young children who couldn't work or provide any value to society. They only targeted the Jewish community for their 'Special Treatment', but the numbers and types of people that were murdered by Nazi leaders were plentiful.
 
Holocaust victims included more than 200,000 survivors that came forward or were liberated once the Allied powers took over Germany and German-occupied countries and ended World War II. Many of these people had been through all of the torture, the concentration camps, labor camps, and other horrific experiences, and somehow escaped with their lives. Many had watched as others around them were killed, including their families and loved ones. Today, there are many survivor stories that can educate people on a firsthand look at the Holocaust and its horror.
 
In fact, people were so traumatized after the war that they often couldn't return home. They were put in displaced persons (DP) camps and allowed to remain there until they were moved. Jews and others were allowed to emigrate to countries like Palestine, the U.S., Israel, and countries throughout South America, among others. By 1957, the last of the DP camps had closed as all the survivors had been successfully relocated. The Holocaust was the cause of World War II in Europe and remains one of the worst events in modern history, and has many victims from all walks of life.