The Holocaust
Six million Jews are murdered by a bureaucratic state using industrial methods.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 4 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Nazi Germany and its collaborators kill approximately six million Jews — two thirds of Europe's Jewish population — along with Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners, Poles, gay men and political opponents. What distinguishes it is not the scale of killing alone but its character: administered by civil servants, scheduled by railway timetable, and industrialised in purpose-built extermination camps. It is the reference point against which the twentieth century measures itself.