The Holocaust

The ‘Holocaust’ is a word of Greek origin meaning “Sacrifice by Fire”. The Holocaust was the state sponsored murder of approximately 6 million Jews conflicted by Nazi Germany.

When the Nazis came into power in January 1933, they had strongly believed that the Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews were aliens to the community and a national threat.

Throughout the era of the Holocaust, other targeted victims were the Gypsies, the disabled and the Slavic; deemed inferior. Other groups were prosecuted on behavioral grounds, these being the Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the homosexuals.

In 1933 there was approximately over nine million European Jews, most living in the land occupied by Nazi Germany. By 1945 the Germans had murdered almost 2 out of every 3 Jews.