The Holocaust: Hitler's Final Solution Nearly Came To Be

The term Holocaust in modern usage has refered to perhaps one of the greatest examples of human tragedy. It refers most often to the systematic attempt on the part of the nazi's during world War 2 to eradicate the entire race of Jews from Germany and parts of Europe through mass murder on a scale not seen before or since.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were elected to power in Germany in 1933 they immediately began to take measures to attack the jews living there. They put forth a decree defining who was a jew based on parentage with terms like "mischlinge" (half-breeds) and once defined they were vilified.
The Jews in Germany were often blamed for the misfortunes of the nation and a systematic attempt was made to remove them from the economic life of the country. They were removed from jobs in the government, banks, and dismissed from civil service positions and their property excessively taxed. This process of Aryanization was the first big step in the persecution of jews on the whole.
In 1938, a German diplomat in Paris was assassinated by a young jew. The reaction in Germany was "The night of broken glass" (Kristallnacht) when all synogogues and jewish owned shops were set on fire and their windows smashed and thousands of jews arrested.
With the German invasion of Poland in 1939 the Nazi's gained control over 2 million more jews in the western part of the country. They almost immediately isolated them in Ghettos where they were put to work manufacturing goods for Germany while they were slowly starved due to rationing of foods that only provided for about 1000 calories a day, which is half of what is required. In 1941 came the formation of the "Einsatzgruppen" which were squads of nazi secret Police of about 3000 men each whose job it was to seek out Jews in Russia, after the German invasion, and shoot them "En Masse" on the spot, strip them of their valuables and quickly bury them in mass graves and ditches.
The same year "The Final Solution" was devised and undertaken. Under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of Reich Security, an organized and efficient system of death camps were arrainged for the systematic dissolution of the Jewish people. The camps were set up in occupied Poland and managed at their peak to dispose of thousands at a time. The victims would be stripped naked and lured into facilities that were made to look like shower stalls. Once inside they would be gassed to death with either hydrogen cyanide or carbon monoxide gas and their bodies disposed of in ovens or crematoriums. The names of these camps were Aushwitz, treblinka, kulmhof, belzec, sobibor, and lubin. The victims were brought in by rail from all territories in Europe under Nazi control. Many died en route, others were worked and starved to death in the camps, others subjected to medical experiments, others died of disease or were shot.
It is estimated that over 11 million people were killed by the Nazis including 6 million Jews during the course of World War 2. After the war the remaining Jewish people pressed for the victorious Allies to provide them with a nation of their own. The Allies responded with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.