The Holocaust was the systematic and state-sponsored persecution and genocide of over 6 million Jewish people and other marginalized peoples by the Nazi German regime and its allies. Beginning in 1933, the Nazi rhetoric continued to radicalize until the end of World Warr II in 1945.

With the election of Adolf Hitler in 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany. The Nazis believed that the so-called Jewish race was the most inferior and most dangerous of all races. Contemporary beliefs about eugenics and Social Darwinism were used to falsely justify these beliefs. As a result, the Nazis argued that Jewish people were a threat to German society and needed to be removed and eradicated.

Building upon centuries-old antisemitism, the Nazis began not with mass murder but rather political rhetoric. They falsely blamed Jewish people for many of Germany’s social, economic, and political problems. For example, Nazis blamed Jewish people for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Laws around all aspects of daily life were created to exclude Jewish people. Slowly building upon this ideology, the Nazis’ plan culminated in the organized, systematic genocide of Jewish people, called the “Final Solution.”

The two main methods of killing during the Holocaust are referenced in “Woodchucks”: mass shootings and gas chambers.