Holocaust

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, refers to the systematic extermination of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime during the years of 1933 to 1945. Although the genocide started in 1941, the event is generally considered by scholars to have begun when Hitler was elected Chancellor in 1933. It was one of the most heinous acts of genocide in human history.

The Holocaust was the result of the fascist and racist ideologies of the Nazi regime, which came to power in Germany in 1933. The Nazis believed in the concept of Aryan racial purity and the idea that Jews were an inferior race. They implemented policies of persecution and discrimination against Jews and other minority groups, which ultimately led to their extermination in death camps all across Europe.

The Holocaust can also be understood in the context of imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The Nazis' aggressive expansionist policies and their exploitation of occupied territories for economic gain were key factors in the Holocaust. The forced labor of concentration camp prisoners, the confiscation of Jewish property, and the looting of Jewish businesses all served to enrich the German economy and the Nazi regime. This is known as the theory of imperialism in which capitalist countries exploit the resources and labour of their occupied territories for their own gain.

The Holocaust had a profound impact on the Jewish people, leading to the displacement and dispossession of millions of individuals and the destruction of entire communities. The trauma of the Holocaust continues to be felt by Jewish people and their descendants to this day.

Timeline

Even before coming to power, Hitler and his followers had promoted antisemitism and blamed Judaism for the rise of the Soviet Union. In Mein Kampf, written in 1926, Hitler claimed that Jews had killed 30 million people in the Soviet Union.

The Nazis began the industrial-scale genocide of Jews in the summer of 1941 after suffering heavy losses to the Red Army. They adopted the Final Solution at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. Germany killed most of the poor Jews in Europe while many bourgeois Jews escaped to the United States.