The History of the Holocaust: 6 Million Lives Lost
The Holocaust: Remembering the Genocide
The Holocaust, also known as the Jewish Genocide or HaShoah, was a period of unspeakable horror and tragedy during Nazi Germany’s reign led by Adolf Hitler. Under the command of Heinrich Himmler and the SS forces, thousands of Jews were systematically killed, along with millions of others, in a genocide that shook the world.
Recent estimates suggest that around 10-11 million people fell victim to the Nazi regime, with approximately two-thirds of European Jews, totaling nine million before the Holocaust, being killed. The numbers are staggering, with over one million Jewish children, two million Jewish women, and three million Jewish men perishing in the Holocaust.
The violence and genocide leading up to the Holocaust occurred in stages, with the enactment of laws that stripped Jews of their civil rights, such as the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Concentration camps were established as places where prisoners were forced to work until their deaths from exhaustion or disease, while a network of over 40,000 facilities targeted Jewish and other victims for imprisonment and extermination.
The systematic killing of Jews and political opponents was carried out by the paramilitary group (Einsatzgruppen) through mass executions, and the occupiers imprisoned Jews and Roma in ghettos before transporting them to death camps. Countless atrocities were committed, with those who survived the journey being worked to death, used for medical experiments, or killed in gas chambers. Every corner of the German bureaucracy played a role in the logistics of the genocide, contributing to the Third Reich being described as a Genocidal State.
It is estimated that six million Jews fell victim to the genocide during World War II, a solemn and sobering figure that is commemorated annually on April 27 in Israel to honor the victims of the Holocaust. Additionally, January 27, the day of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by allied forces, is recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the UN General Assembly, serving as a day of reflection and remembrance for the millions who lost their lives in one of history’s darkest chapters.
