Chrona

The interactive map is loading…

The Holocaust

The genocide of Europe’s Jews and different experiences of persecution

Nazi rule and the Second World War

The Holocaust was the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews, in which approximately six million people were murdered. It was neither merely a collection of isolated atrocities nor a synonym for all wartime victims. It involved connected persecution and murder across Europe, also carried out through collaborating regimes, institutions and individuals.

From loss of rights to murder

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 are one example of the prewar removal of rights. Under occupation the Nazis established ghettos, restricted movement and exploited forced labour. The war brought mass murder, but there was no identical sequence of events for every Jewish community.

Murder outside camps and within them

Mobile Einsatzgruppen units massacred Jews and other victims during the German advance into the Soviet Union in 1941. Killing centres were built specifically for mass murder. Auschwitz-Birkenau combined concentration camps, forced labour and extermination. Confining the Holocaust to camp fences would conceal other places and forms of the crime.

Perpetrators, collaboration and local differences

Nazi policy operated under different conditions across Europe. Allied regimes, local administrations, auxiliary police units and individual collaborators played roles. Occupation arrangements and opportunities for escape, hiding or resistance affected the experiences of those persecuted.

Resistance and possibilities of survival

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April and May 1943 represents armed resistance. Escape and hiding were also possible under some circumstances, but their availability varied by place. Explaining Nazi crimes therefore also means following people, their decisions and their limited choices, alongside perpetrators’ institutions.

What the term describes

The genocide of Jews was connected with other Nazi crimes but should also be distinguished from them. The Nazis and their allies also committed genocide against Europe’s Roma. Other victim groups require attention to their own histories; an undifferentiated total can hide why and how particular people were persecuted.

Explore further

Sources

  • The Nuremberg Laws — Greg Bradsher, Prologue, Winter 2010 · US National Archives and Records Administration

    Third Reich Began Persecutions Years Before Laws Enacted in 1935; Nazi Rally in Nuremberg Hailed Passage of the Laws

    NARA-produced text: CC0. Images from this page are not reproduced.

  • The Holocaust, part one · The National Archives; background by Dan Stone

    Explanatory text on ghettos/uprising and Dan Stone’s historical background.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . This use covers selected explanatory text, not archival photographs or other separately credited objects.

  • The Holocaust, part two · The National Archives; background by Dan Stone

    Explanation of Auschwitz I/Birkenau; general background repeated from part one.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . This use covers selected explanatory text, not archival photographs or other separately credited objects.

  • The Liberation of the Death and Concentration Camps, Europe, June 1944–May 1945 · UK Ministry of Defence / COI, 2005

    Printed pages 6–9 (PDF 8–11). Surrounding estimates, inaccurate generalisations and third-party quotations are excluded.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . Selected Crown text only; separately credited photographs, maps, poetry and testimony are excluded.