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The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah,[b] was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945.[c] Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma and "incurably sick",[6] as well as ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses, resulting in up to 17 million deaths overal

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Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. Starting in 1933, the Nazis built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and people deemed "undesirable". After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews. Over 42,000 camps, ghettos, and other detention sites were established.[8]

The deportation of Jews to the ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", discussed by senior Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942. As German forces captured territories in the East, all anti-Jewish measures were radicalized. Under the coordination of the SS, with directions from the highest leadership of the Nazi Party, killings were committed within Germany itself, throughout German-occupied Europe, and across all territories controlled by the Axis powers. Paramilitary death squads called Einsatzgruppen in cooperation with Wehrmacht police battalions and local collaborators murdered around 1.3 million Jews in mass shootings between 1941 and 1945. By mid-1942, victims were being deported from the ghettos in sealed freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, they were killed in gas chambers. The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945

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Germany after World War I, Hitler's world view

Further information: Treaty of Versailles and Political views of Adolf Hitler § Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

The political situation in Germany and elsewhere in Europe after World War I (1914–1918) contributed to the rise of virulent antisemitism. Many Germans did not accept that their country had been defeated, which gave birth to the stab-in-the-back myth. This insinuated that it was disloyal politicians, chiefly Jews and communists, who had orchestrated Germany's surrender. Inflaming the anti-Jewish sentiment was the apparent over-representation of Jews in the leadership of communist revolutionary governments in Europe, such as Ernst Toller, head of a short-lived revolutionary government in Bavaria. This perception contributed to the canard of Jewish Bolshevism.[57]

The economic strains of the Great Depression led some in the German medical establishment to advocate murder (euphemistically called "euthanasia") of the "incurable" mentally and physically disabled as a cost-saving measure to free up funds for the curable.[58] By the time the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party,[k] came to power in 1933, there was already a tendency to seek to save the racially "valuable", while ridding society of the racially "undesirable".[60] The party had originated in 1920[59] as an offshoot of the völkisch movement, and it adopted that movement's antisemitism.[61] Early antisemites in the party included Dietrich Eckart, publisher of the Völkischer Beobachter, the party's newspaper, and Alfred Rosenberg, who wrote antisemitic articles for it in the 1920s. Rosenberg's vision of a secretive Jewish conspiracy ruling the world would influence Hitler's views of Jews by making them the driving force behind communism.[62] The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism remain a matter of debate.[63] Central to his world view was the idea of expansion and lebensraum (living space) for Germany. Open about his hatred of Jews, he subscribed to the common antisemitic stereotypes.[64] From the early 1920s onwards, he compared the Jews to germs and said they should be dealt with in the same way. He viewed Marxism as a Jewish doctrine, said he was fighting against "Jewish Marxism", and believed that Jews had created communism as part of a conspiracy to destroy Germany

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Rise of Nazi Germany

Dictatorship and repression (1933–1939)

Further information: Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany, Racial policy of Nazi Germany, and Haavara Agreement

Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses: SAtroopers urge a boycott outside the Nathan Israel Department Store, Berlin, 1 April 1933. All signs read: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews."[66]

With the establishment of the Third Reich in 1933, German leaders proclaimed the rebirth of the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").[67] Nazi policies divided the population into two groups: the Volksgenossen ("national comrades") who belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft, and the Gemeinschaftsfremde ("community aliens") who did not. Enemies were divided into three groups: the "racial" or "blood" enemies, such as the Jews and Roma; political opponents of Nazism, such as Marxists, liberals, Christians, and the "reactionaries" viewed as wayward "national comrades"; and moral opponents, such as gay men, the "work-shy", and habitual criminals. The latter two groups were to be sent to concentration camps for "re-education", with the aim of eventual absorption into the Volksgemeinschaft. "Racial" enemies could never belong to the Volksgemeinschaft; they were to be removed from society.[68]

Before and after the March 1933 Reichstag elections, the Nazis intensified their campaign of violence against opponents.[69] They set up concentration camps for extrajudicial imprisonment.[70] One of the first, at Dachau, opened on 9 March 1933.[71] Initially the camp contained mostly Communists and Social Democrats.[72] Other early prisons were consolidated by mid-1934 into purpose-built camps outside the cities, run exclusively by the SS.[73] The initial purpose of the camps was to serve as a deterrent by terrorizing Germans who did not conform.[74]

Throughout the 1930s, the legal, economic, and social rights of Jews were steadily restricted.[75] On 1 April 1933, there was a boycott of Jewish businesses.[76] On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, which excluded Jews and other "non-Aryans" from the civil service.[77] Jews were disbarred from practising law, being editors or proprietors of newspapers, or joining the Journalists' Association. Jews were not allowed to own farms.[78] In Silesia, in March 1933, a group of men entered the courthouse and beat up Jewish lawyers; Friedländer writes that, in Dresden, Jewish lawyers and judges were dragged out of courtrooms during trials.[79] Jewish students were restricted by quotas from attending schools and universities.[77] Jewish businesses were targeted for closure or "Aryanization", the forcible sale to Germans; of the approximately 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in Germany in 1933, about 7,000 were still Jewish-owned in April 1939. Works by Jewish composers,[80] authors, and artists were excluded from publications, performances, and exhibitions.[81] Jewish doctors were dismissed or urged to resign. The Deutsches Ärzt

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Nazi Germany before

Operation Barbarossa of 1941, including occupied Poland and the General Government

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German-occupied PolandFurther information: The Holocaust in Poland, Invasion of Poland, Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), History of the Jews in Poland, Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland, and General GovernmentNazi Germany before Operation Barbarossa of 1941, including occupied Poland and the General Government territoryWhen Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, it gained control of about 2 million Jews in the occupied territory. The rest of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union, which had control of the rest of Poland's pre-war population of 3.3–3.5 million Jews.[132] German plans for Poland included expelling gentile Poles from large areas, confining Jews, and settling Germans on the emptied lands. To help the process along, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, ordered that the "leadership class" in Poland be killed and the Jews expelled from the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany.[133]The Germans initiated a policy of sending Jews from all territories they had recently annexed (Austria, Czechoslovakia, and western Poland) to the central section of Poland, which they called the General Government. There the Jews were concentrated in ghettos in major cities,[134] chosen for their railway lines to facilitate later deportation.[135] Food supplies were restricted, public hygiene was difficult, and the inhabitants were often subjected to forced labour.[136] In the labour camps and ghettos at least half a million Jews died of starvation, disease, and poor living conditions.[137] Jeremy Black writes that the ghettos were not intended, in 1939, as a step towards the extermination of the Jews. Instead, they were viewed as part of a policy of creating a territorial reservation to contain them.

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German-occupied PolandFurther information: The Holocaust in Poland, Invasion of Poland, Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), History of the Jews in Poland, Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland, and General GovernmentNazi Germany before Operation Barbarossa of 1941, including occupied Poland and the General Government territoryWhen Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, it gained control of about 2 million Jews in the occupied territory. The rest of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union, which had control of the rest of Poland's pre-war population of 3.3–3.5 million Jews.[132] German plans for Poland included expelling gentile Poles from large areas, confining Jews, and settling Germans on the emptied lands. To help the process along, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, ordered that the "leadership class" in Poland be killed and the Jews expelled from the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany.[133]The Germans initiated a policy of sending Jews from all territories they had recently annexed (Austria, Czechoslovakia, and western Poland) to the central section of Poland, which they called the General Government. There the Jews were concentrated in ghettos in major cities,[134] chosen for their railway lines to facilitate later deportation.[135] Food supplies were restricted, public hygiene was difficult, and the inhabitants were often subjected to forced labour.[136] In the labour camps and ghettos at least half a million Jews died of starvation, disease, and poor living conditions.[137] Jeremy Black writes that the ghettos were not intended, in 1939, as a step towards the extermination of the Jews. Instead, they were viewed as part of a policy of creating a territorial reservation to contain them.