Holocaust

"Selection" of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers.

Holocaust means "completely burnt" and derives from the Greek word holokauston - (holos: completely, and kaustos: a sacrificial or burnt offering to a god). The term was used to describe a catstrophe but was first used to describe Hitler's persecution of the Jews (and other groups he considered undesirable, like gypsies, communists and homosexuals) during World War II in 1942.

The Holocaust refers specifically to the genocide of the European Jews by the Nazi regime of Germany. It was a policy of extermination carried on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler motivated by his anti-Semitic and National Socialist beliefs.

In addition to the genocide of 6 million Jews, several million other people were also victims of Nazi atrocities, including Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), physically and mentally disabled people, common criminals, homosexuals, communists and other political opponents of National Socialism regime.

The records of the amount of people who were victims of genocide in total are between 10 and 12 million.

Since the end of World War II, Holocaust denial has surfaced among fringe groups in the West with anti-semitic leanings. In Islam, the current President of Iran has also questioned it. The Germans kept numerous and accurate records of the massacres.