what is the holocaust?

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of about six million European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II, from 1941 to 1945. It is also known as the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning "catastrophe." The Holocaust involved mass shootings, death camps with poison gas chambers, and forced labor camps, targeting Jews as well as other groups such as Roma, disabled individuals, political opponents, and others deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime. The Nazis referred to this genocide as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," aiming at the complete extermination of Jews in Europe.