The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II (1941–1945).

The term encompasses the network of concentration camps, ghettos, and extermination camps where Jews and other targeted groups—including Roma, disabled people, and homosexuals—were imprisoned, enslaved, and killed.

Holocaust derives from Greek words meaning "burnt whole," originally a sacrificial term.

The Holocaust remains the defining example of industrialized genocide: Holocaust survivors, Holocaust memorial, Holocaust denial. (Lowercase holocaust refers to destruction or slaughter on a mass scale.)