The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during World War II. The Nazis also targeted other groups, including Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.
