What Was the Holocaust?

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. 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. In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

The History of this Site

Holocaust News launched in 2013 on Google+ to share news related to the Holocaust. Google+ posts were beautifully presented with nice, large images when they were available. Holocaust News was a nice community of about 300 members.

On October 8, 2018, Google announced that it was shutting down the consumer version of Google+ at the end of August 2019 because “it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption.” Google explained that the “consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”

The sharing of news has continued on X, formerly Twitter. The account has more than 2,000 followers.

This website and the newsletter it offers for free are other ways to follow news about the Holocaust. The site allows for longer posts and, of course, not everyone uses X.

This site is hosted on Micro.blog, a friendly community where you can simply read posts or engage with others if choose to do so.

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Thank you for your interest in the Holocaust.