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The Holocaust - The Jewish Virtual Library. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Introduction to the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire. " The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others).

Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Further Reading Bergen, Doris. Dawidowicz, Lucy S. Gilbert, Martin. Gutman, Israel, editor. Hilberg, Raul. Genocide. Raphael Lemkin, in his work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), coined the term "genocide" by combining Greek genos (γένος; race, people) and Latin cīdere (to kill).[5] Lemkin defined genocide as follows: "Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.

It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

" Genocide as a crime[edit] International law[edit] Intent to destroy[edit] In part[edit] The Holocaust. The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt")[2] also known as Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"; Yiddish: חורבן, Churben or Hurban, from the Hebrew for "destruction"), was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, throughout the German Reich and German-occupied territories.[3] Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed.[4] Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.[5] A network of over 40,000 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territory were used to concentrate, hold, and kill Jews and other victims.[6] The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages.

Etymology and use of the term Distinctive features Origins. German Propaganda Archive (Guide Page) Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page Propaganda was central to Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The German Propaganda Archive includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists. The goal is to help people understand the two great totalitarian systems of the twentieth century by giving them access to the primary material.

For further information on the site, see the FAQ. New items are described in the GPA Blog. My book titled Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (Michigan State University Press, 2004) provides an analysis of much of the material on the German Propaganda Archive. It can be ordered in the United States through amazon.

This site is maintained by: Randall Bytwerk [My e-mail address is available on the FAQ page.] Professor Emeritus Calvin College Page design by Rob Veenstra. Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, a charismatic, Austrian-born demagogue, rose to power in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s at a time of social, political, and economic upheaval. Failing to take power by force in 1923, he eventually won power by democratic means. Once in power, he eliminated all opposition and launched an ambitious program of world domination and elimination of the Jews, paralleling ideas he advanced in his book, Mein Kampf. His "1,000 Year Reich" barely lasted 12 years and he died a broken and defeated man. 1. Facts about Hitler's life and the historical events which occurred during that time. 2. 3. 4. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, the fourth child of Alois Schickelgruber and Klara Hitler in the Austrian town of Braunau.

When Adolf was three years old, the family moved to Passau, along the Inn River on the German side of the border. Following another family move, Adolf lived for six months across from a large Benedictine monastery. . - "My Struggle" in German. 1. Swastika. Nazism. Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups.

Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in post-First World War Germany, which many Germans felt had been left humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. German Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, asserted the superiority of an Aryan master race, and criticised both capitalism and communism for being associated with Jewish materialism. The Nazi Party was founded as the pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party in January 1919. Etymology Position in the political spectrum Origins Völkisch nationalism.

Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April, 1889, in the small Austrian town of Braunau near the German border. Both Hitler's parents had come from poor peasant families. His father Alois Hitler, the illegitimate son of a housemaid, was an intelligent and ambitious man and was at the time of Hitler's birth, a senior customs official in Lower Austria. Alois had been married before. In 1873 he had married Anna Glasl, the fifty-year-old adopted daughter of another customs collector. According to Ian Kershaw, the author of Hitler 1889-1936 (1998): "It is unlikely to have been a love-match. The marriage to a woman fourteen years older than himself had almost certainly a material motive, since Anna was relatively well off, and in addition had connections within the civil service.

" Anna suffered from poor health and her age meant that she was unable to have children. Klara Polzl, Hitler's mother, left home at sixteen to to join the household of her second cousin, Alois Hitler. Louis L. Dr. Adolf Hitler. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 novel from the point of view of a young boy, written by Irish novelist John Boyne.

Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.[1] As of March 2010, the novel had sold more than five million copies around the world.[2] It was published as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in the United States to go along with the traditional American spelling of the word.

In both 2007 and 2008, it was the best selling book of the year in Spain. It has also reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. [not verified in body] Plot[edit] Bruno finds out he is not allowed to explore the back of the house or its surroundings. Out of boredom and curiosity, he decides to explore anyway. Criticism[edit] References[edit] Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ]; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer (leader) of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.

As effective dictator of Nazi Germany, Hitler was at the centre of World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust. Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the precursor of the NSDAP, the German Workers' Party, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. Hitler actively sought Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people. Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of at least 5.5 million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen ("sub-humans") and socially undesirable.

Early years Ancestry Childhood and education Notes. Hitler.