The term Holocaust comes from the Greek words holo (total) and kaio (to burn). Originally it is an ancient religious ceremony that consisted of sacrificing an animal, which was to be burned or cremated as an offering to the gods. Today it refers to the systematic and deliberate genocide or extermination of a social group on the basis of race or religion.
When used with its own name, it refers to the extermination of the Jews in Europe carried out by the Nazis in World War II. The main reason for this human disaster is that they were considered a foreign race that could not be integrated into European culture, for some they were the incarnation of evil and the antithesis of the Aryan race (superior to the rest of the races and destined to dominate the world).
Also included in this genocide were people considered to be "impure", which were gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, the insane, Soviet prisoners of war, and, in general, any person that the Nazis considered a threat.
When the National Socialist (Nazi) regime came to power in Germany in 1933, it immediately took systematic measures against the Jews. Anyone of distant Jewish descent was automatically considered a Jew, regardless of whether this individual was a member of the Jewish religious community or their place of birth.
At the beginning of World War II, almost two million Polish Jews were under Nazi power, ghettos were established throughout the territory of Poland, and Jews were forced to concentrate there, once the resettlement was completed, the ghettos were cordoned off and isolated with a fence or a wall. Anyone who tried to leave ran the risk of being sentenced to death or shot and killed on the spot by the guards.
Later a new method of extermination was devised: the concentration camps, which functioned as authentic factories of death, had gas chambers, where many Jews died in them. Over the years many Jews from all over Europe (France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, etc.), were transferred to the fields, and employed as labor in industries; some were subjected to medical experiments, others died of starvation, disease or executions.
The victory of the allies prevents the Nazi regime from carrying out its extermination program. However, the balance was terrifying. All historical investigations and calculations agree that between five and six million Jews were murdered. Despite the important documentary evidence on the systematic nature of the extermination, certain people deny the Holocaust or minimize the number of murders that have occurred.
