The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews across Europe by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. There were a number of steps moving from discrimination to segregation, persecution, exploitation and eventually the mass destruction of Jewish people and their way of life across mainland Europe. During this period the regime also persecuted other groups: political opponents, Jehovah&rsquos Witnesses, disabled people, gay men, Roma and Sinti people and those they defined as ‘asocial’. However, of these groups only disabled and Roma and Sinti people were targeted for extermination.
It is important to note that definitions of the Holocaust can vary dependent on the organisation or scholar; some define the Holocaust as pertaining only to the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, whereas others include all victims of Nazi persecution as Holocaust victims (e.g. Roma, Sinti). Despite the difference, both definitions are correct.