History › World wars & Cold War › World War II
The Holocaust
persecution from 1933; mass murder 1941–1945; six million Jews killed· Event· Europe
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Nazi Germany's systematic, state-organized murder of about six million European Jews, along with millions of other victims, mainly from 1941 to 1945.
See it on the History map →What happened
After 1933 Nazi laws stripped Jews of rights, jobs and property; the 1935 Nuremberg Laws defined them by ancestry. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, mobile killing units shot well over a million Jews. From 1942 the regime ran death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Sobibor, where deportees were gassed. About two-thirds of Europe's Jews were killed. Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war, Poles and others were also targeted.
Why it matters
It is history's most thoroughly documented genocide and led directly to the word 'genocide', new international law against it, and the postwar human rights framework.
How we know
Nazi documents such as the Wannsee Conference minutes and deportation lists, the camps themselves, Allied liberation films, the Nuremberg trials, and tens of thousands of survivors' testimonies.
Still debated
Historians debate exactly when the decision for total murder was made, and how far it came from Hitler's orders versus pressure and initiative from below.
Connections (4)
▸Fascism and Nazi Germany (Mussolini, Hitler) led to The HolocaustWell documented
The connection
Nazism made antisemitism central, blaming Jews for Germany's defeat and troubles. In power, the Nazis escalated step by step: boycotts and job bans (1933), the Nuremberg Laws (1935), the Kristallnacht pogrom (1938), ghettos after 1939, then mass murder from 1941. The state's bureaucracy, police and army carried it out.
When and how
Germany and occupied Europe, 1933–1945; leaders included Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, who chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, and Adolf Eichmann.
How we know
Nazi laws and orders, the Wannsee minutes, the regime's detailed deportation records, and the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate whether genocide was intended from the start or radicalized during the war; both camps agree Nazi ideology drove it.
▸The Holocaust took place during World War IIWell documented
The connection
The war made the Holocaust possible on a continental scale. Conquest brought millions of Jews in Poland, the Soviet Union and elsewhere under Nazi control, and the 1941 invasion of the USSR began the mass shootings. War gave cover and secrecy. Allied victory ended it, as soldiers liberated the camps in 1944–45.
When and how
Occupied Poland, the Soviet Union and the rest of Nazi-ruled Europe, 1939–1945; Soviet troops reached Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, now International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
How we know
German records tie killing operations to military campaigns, and Allied liberation reports and films documented the camps.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate whether the Allies could have done more, such as bombing the rail lines to Auschwitz, and how the war's course shaped the timing of Nazi decisions.
▸The Holocaust spurred support for the Founding of Israel and the 1948 Arab–Israeli warMostly agreed
The connection
Zionism, the movement for a Jewish homeland, began in the 1890s, but the murder of six million Jews convinced many that Jews needed a state of their own. About 250,000 Jewish survivors were stranded in displaced-persons camps after the war, and Western sympathy grew. This helped win the 1947 UN partition vote.
When and how
Europe and Palestine, 1945–1948; Britain turned back refugee ships such as the Exodus (1947), drawing world attention.
How sure are we?
UN debates, US and British records and survivors' immigration show the link; historians agree it mattered, while noting Zionist institutions already existed in Palestine.
Debates and open questions
How decisive the Holocaust was, versus decades of Zionist building and Britain's exit, is debated. Palestinians argue they paid the price for Europe's crime.
▸The Holocaust led to the Genocide Convention adopted by the United NationsWell documented
The connection
Lawyer Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who lost dozens of relatives in the Holocaust, coined the word 'genocide' in 1944 and campaigned for a treaty. The UN General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention on December 9, 1948, making genocide a crime under international law, one day before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When and how
UN General Assembly in Paris, December 9, 1948; Lemkin coined the term in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.
How we know
The Convention's text and drafting records, and Lemkin's own writings, which point directly to the Nazi crimes.
Debates and open questions
The Convention's narrow definition, which leaves out political groups, and its weak enforcement, as in Cambodia and Rwanda, remain debated.