The Holocaust was the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War between 1941 and 1945. The collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.
The memorial now stands as an everlasting symbol of Germany’s national identity. The Holocaust is now a permanent memory of Germany’s history and landscape. Since the memorial was funded by the state, it is also a sign of political representation.
The Nazis believed that Germans were racially superior. They believed Jews were a threat to the so-called German racial community.
While Jews were the primary victims, the Nazis also targeted other groups for persecution and murder. The Nazis claimed that Roma, People with disabilities, some Slavic peoples (especially Poles and Russians), and black people were biologically inferior.
The regime persecuted other groups because of politics, ideology, or behavior. These groups included Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, and people the Nazis called “asocials” and “professional criminals.”
The early Christian church portrayed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God, as agents of the devil, and as murderers of Jesus. (The Vatican renounced these accusations in the 1960s.)
Jews were accused of causing plagues, murdering children for religious rituals, and secretly conspiring to dominate the world. None of these accusations were true.
