Nazi Extermination of the Jews.

The extermination of European Jews during World War II, which has come to be known as the Holocaust, was the outgrowth of Adolf Hitler’s violent persecution of Germany’s Jews through tactics that began with his ascent to power in 1933. Systematically deprived of their political rights, occupations, and property, the Jews in Germany suffered physical violence, mental anguish, exile, and death at the hands of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party). On January 30, 1939, Hitler predicted that the coming world war would bring “the annihilation of the Jewish race throughout Europe.” World War II began seven months later, on September 1, when Hitler’s armed forces invaded Poland. Simultaneously, Hitler and his henchmen, including Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler (commander of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, the Nazi secret police), initiated policies and programs they hoped would bring about the extermination of the Jews.