Holocaust

The word ‘holocaust’ (Shoah in Hebrew), originally meant ‘a burnt sacrifice,’ but it has come to mean the horrific killing of millions of Jews by Nazis before and during World War II.
The Nazi party rose to power in Germany between the world wars. It gained supporters by promising strong leadership at a time when there was weak government, poverty and unemployment. As soon as the Nazis were in power and Adolf Hitler became Führer (leader), Nazis were taught to believe that ‘true’ Germans, or ‘Aryans,’ were superior to all other races. When Hitler declared that many of Germany’s problems were caused by the Jews, a terrible persecution of all Jews began. Many were forced to live in ghettoes (restricted areas), where they died of starvation and disease.
The Nazis rounded up Jews in Germany and in the countries that they occupied during the war, and sent them to concentration camps. These were prison camps where Jews had to work hard with little food, and many of them died. Some of the camps became ‘death camps’ with gas chambers in which Jews were deliberately killed. Auschwitz was the biggest concentration camp, located in occupied Poland. Six million Jew died during the holocaust.