Holocaust is the name given to the systematic state-sponsored persecution and genocide of various ethnic, religious and political groups during World War Ii by Nazi Germany.i The main victims of the Holocaust were European Jews in what the Nazis called the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question.'ii However, other victim groups included Russians, Slavs, Poles, the mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, outspoken Lutheran and Catholic clergy, Communists and political dissidents and criminals.iii .

             Shortly after Hitler's accession to power, the Nazis organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany on April 1, 1933.iv This was followed by a series of increasingly harsh racist laws that were passed in quick succession.v On April 7, 1933, the Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service was passed under which all Jewish civil servants at the Reich, Lander, and municipal levels of government were fired immediately.vi The Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists, and labor leaders.vii With the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag, parliamentary democracy ended.viii Jews were barred from all sports and athletic clubs and the production of Kosher meat was banned.ix The law for the prevention of Hereditary and Defective Offspring allowed the forced sterilization of Sinti and Roma, people with mental and physical disabilities, blacks, and others considered inferior or unfit.x.

             The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 prevented marriage between any Jew and on-Jew, and stripped all Jews of German citizenship and of their basic rights, such as to vote.xi Jews were also defined as a separate race under 'The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor,' therefore being Jewish was now determined by ancestry, not religious beliefs or practices, to define the Jewish people.