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Holocaust: Quick Facts

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The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Facts

Also Known As Ḥurban • Shoʾah
Date 1933 - 1945
Location Austria • Germany • Hungary • Poland
Context Nazism • resistance • Third Reich • World War II • Holocaust remembrance days

Did You Know?

  • The Nazis confiscated Jewish artifacts and intended to display them in a museum of the extinct people.
  • In 2007, the European Union outlawed Holocaust denial.

Photos and Videos

Samuel Bak: Smoke
Book burning
Nazi-era passport of a German Jew
Kristallnacht
Blocking the entrance of Jews
Roma prisoners at Dachau
Execution during the Holocaust
Łódź ghetto Judenrat
Einsatzgruppen
Babi Yar monument in Kyiv, Ukraine
How Hitler systematically discriminated against Jews
A vintage black-and-white image of a young girl writing on a chalkboard.
A vintage black-and-white image shows a group of men in white suits standing in front of a boat.
Night of Broken Glass: Nazi Persecution of Jews
Listen to holocaust survivors talking about their hesitation to speak about the painful past
See All Videos, Images and Interactives →

Related Topics and References

Topics
Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

Timeline

Samuel Bak: Smoke
Holocaust
1933 - 1945
Learn how the Third Reich utilized U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic to destroy Allied supply convoys
Battle of the Atlantic
September 3, 1939 - May 8, 1945
Nazi leaders in Paris
Battle of France
May 10, 1940 - June 25, 1940
Dunkirk evacuation
Dunkirk evacuation
May 26, 1940 - June 4, 1940
Map showing the British and Axis military campaigns in North Africa during World War II, with labeled troop movements, key battles, and shifting front lines from Egypt across Libya to Tunisia along the Mediterranean coast. The map includes arrows and dates marking advances and retreats by both sides, and highlights major turning points and defensive lines.
North Africa campaigns
June 1940 - May 13, 1943
the Blitz
Battle of Britain
July 1940 - September 1940
German bombing of London during the Blitz
the Blitz
September 7, 1940 - May 11, 1941
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
June 22, 1941
Pearl Harbor attack
Pearl Harbor attack
December 7, 1941
Wake Island
Battle of Wake Island
December 8, 1941 - December 23, 1941
U.S. troops advancing on Tarawa, Gilbert Islands, in 1943
Pacific War
December 8, 1941 - September 2, 1945
Bataan Death March
Bataan Death March
April 9, 1942
Doolittle Raid
Doolittle Raid
April 18, 1942
Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway
June 3, 1942 - June 6, 1942
eastern New Guinea, from the 10th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, c. 1902
Kokoda Track Campaign
July 1942 - January 1943
U.S. Marines in combat gear wade ashore from a landing craft onto a sandy beach during the Guadalcanal landing in August 1942.
Battle of Guadalcanal
August 1942 - February 1943
Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
August 22, 1942 - February 2, 1943
Operation Mincemeat documents
Operation Mincemeat
1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
April 19, 1943 - May 16, 1943
The Allied invasion of Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
July 9, 1943 - August 17, 1943
Italian Campaign, World War II
Italian Campaign
July 9, 1943 - May 2, 1945
Battle of Anzio
Battle of Anzio
January 22, 1944 - June 5, 1944
American soldiers in helmets crouch inside a landing craft approaching a smoke-covered beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944.
Normandy Invasion
June 6, 1944 - July 9, 1944
Cowra, New South Wales, Australia
Cowra breakout
August 5, 1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf
Battle of Leyte Gulf
October 23, 1944 - October 26, 1944
Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge
December 16, 1944 - January 16, 1945
Battle of Iwo Jima
Battle of Iwo Jima
February 19, 1945 - March 26, 1945
U.S. Marines on Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
April 1, 1945 - June 21, 1945
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 6, 1945 - August 9, 1945

Key People

default image
Josef Kramer
Nazi commander
Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
American author
Wiesenthal, Simon
Simon Wiesenthal
writer
Anne Frank
Anne Frank
German diarist
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
German nun
Portrait of Adolf Hitler in a collared shirt and tie, facing forward with a serious expression, circa 1933.
Adolf Hitler
dictator of Germany
Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
German political leader and convicted war criminal
Adolf Eichmann listening to an Israeli court's verdict
Adolf Eichmann
German military official
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
German Nazi leader
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
German Nazi official
default image
Amon Göth
Austrian Nazi officer
“Witch of Buchenwald”
Ilse Koch
German war criminal
default image
Karl Otto Koch
German Nazi commandant
Black and white identification document featuring a portrait of John Demjanjuk, a young man with short hair in a dark buttoned shirt, surrounded by handwritten and typed text in German and Russian.
John Demjanjuk
Ukrainian-born automobile worker
Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
German physician
Pister, Hermann
Hermann Pister
German SS officer
default image
Klaus Barbie
Nazi leader
Kaltenbrunner, Ernst
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Austrian Nazi
default image
Rudolf Franz Höss
German Nazi commandant

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U.S. marines raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, in February 1945
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