What was The Holocaust?

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The Holocaust, also called the Shoah, was the Nazi-organised killing of over six million Jewish men, women and children - two thirds of Europe's Jewish population - during World War II. In the years prior to the Holocaust, the Nazi Party had already denied Jews their rights as citizens and as humans and had increasingly made them social outcasts.

TASK 1: Glossary

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• Genocide

• Concentration camps

• Ghettos

• Crematoria

• Anti-Semitic

• Final Solution

Anti-Semitic Laws

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The persecution of the Jews began systematically almost as soon as Hitler came to power. The Nazis established many new anti-Jewish laws. These were introduced slowly at first, so that the civilian population would not realise the extent of the Nazi party's anti-Semitism.

To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Hitler’s “final solution”–now known as the Holocaust–came to fruition under the cover of world war, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of occupied Poland.

Life inside the 'Ghetto' (aka Nazi camps)

Soon after the invasion of Poland in 1939, ghettos were set up in Nazi-occupied cities in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union. These ghettos were bricked off or encircled with barbed wire to stop people from escaping. Over the course of the war, many Jewish people were rounded up and forced to leave their homes and move into these ghettos. Conditions inside the ghettos were extremely brutal. Approximately 800 000 people died in the ghettos from malnutrition, disease and forced labour. Others were murdered outright in shootings. Typical features of ghetto existence included the following:

• Food supplies were inadequate and people struggled to avoid starvation.

• Overcrowding was common, with several families sharing each apartment.

• Human waste and garbage accumulated in the streets.

• Unsanitary conditions made diseases common and hard to control.

• There was not enough fuel for winter heating needs.

• People did not have the clothing they needed to withstand cold weather.