Beginning in 1933, and during World War II, Nazi Germany and its collaborators imprisoned millions of people throughout Nazi-occupied Europe in camps. As Allied troops moved through Europe in 1944 and 1945, they liberated tens of thousands of surviving prisoners in horrific conditions inside the camps.
During the Holocaust, the Nazis imprisoned and murdered Jews and other groups at thousands of camps throughout Europe. The largest camp complex was Auschwitz. It was central to the Nazi plan to murder all European Jews in the Holocaust.
Beginning in the early 1930s, through the end of the war in 1945, Nazis in Germany started indoctrinating millions of children with Nazi ideas through groups like the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth was the Nazi-organized youth movement that was designed to shape the beliefs, actions, and thinking of young Germans, from ages 10 to 18.
The Nazis established many types of camps, including concentration camps, forced-labor camps, transit camps, and five killing centers, among others. By the end of the Holocaust and World War II, millions of people died from exhaustion, starvation, and deliberate mass murder in the camps.
On November 9th and 10th, 1938, Nazi German leaders organized a series of violent, nationwide attacks against Jewish communities. This event, later called the "Night of Broken Glass," or Kristallnacht, marked a terrifying escalation in violence against Jews.
The Nazis and their allies set up ghettos to isolate and control millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Life in the ghettos was overcrowded and miserable, with limited access to food, clean water, heat, and medical services. Despite the conditions, Jews found ways to maintain dignity and community.
In 1935, the Nazi regime took a significant step toward isolating and excluding Jews and other groups from German society through the passage of two laws. Later on, the laws were changed to include the Nazis' definition of who was considered Jewish. This paved the way for more discrimination and ultimately played a role in contributing to the Holocaust.
This video explains what propaganda is and how Hitler and the Nazis used it to exclude Jews and other groups from German society.
After World War II, several nations collaborated to hold the Nuremberg Trials, aiming to bring Nazi leaders to justice for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.
