The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi regime during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.

The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust. But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler�s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide.

Jehovah�s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

Nazi persecution, arrests, and deportations were directed against all members of Jewish families without concern for age. Plucked from their homes and stripped of their childhoods, the children had witnessed the murder of parents, siblings, and relatives.

They faced starvation, illness and brutal labor, until they were consigned to the gas chambers.

/Louis B�low