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The Holocaust (/ ˈ h ɒ l ə k ɔː s t / ⓘ), [1] known in Hebrew as the Shoah (שואה), was the genocide of European Jews during World War II.Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
By the end of the war, more than half of Jewish population of Europe had been murdered in the Holocaust. Poland, home of the largest Jewish community in Europe before the war, had over 90% of its Jewish population, or about 3,000,000 Jews, murdered by the Nazis.
Eberhard Jäckel argues that the genocide of Jews on a systematic and industrial level was already decided at the highest level before 1939. Jäckel notes that Hitler himself had announced the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of a new war in a public speech on the anniversary of his "seizure of power" on 30 January 1939.
[42] [43] During the second half of the war, Auschwitz swelled in size – fueled by the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews – and became the center of the camp system. It was the deadliest concentration camp and Jews sent there faced a virtual death sentence even if they were not immediately killed, as most were.
When the war ended, there were less than 28,000 German Jews and 60,000 survivors from elsewhere in Germany. By 1947, the population had increased to 250,000 owing to emigration from Eastern Bloc countries sanctioned by the communist authorities; Jews made up around 25 percent of the population of displaced persons camps . [ 51 ]
Michael A. Meyer is the Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History emeritus at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and a board member of the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center.
The Jewish collaboration with Nazis were the activities before and during World War II of Jews working, voluntarily or involuntarily, with the antisemitic, racist, homophobic regime of Nazi Germany, with different motivations. The term and history have remained controversial, regarding the exact nature of collaboration in some cases.
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during the World War II and the Holocaust. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674038-59-2. Jersak, Tobias (2008) [2004]. "Decisions to Murder and to Lie: German War Society and the Holocaust". German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival.