10 Things Everybody Gets Wrong About World War 2

The Holocaust is one of history's most tragic eras; a period that saw the wrath of one man being enacted on millions of innocent lives and further contributed to the ostracization of various ethnic and sexual minorities in Germany. The murders were carried out through mass shootings, lethal forced labour, gas chambers, and pogroms; anti-Semitic riots/mass murders.

It is commonly assumed that the Holocaust began during the Second World War and only targeted people of Jewish descent, but the truth is that the genocide began years before the war kicked off with the construction of concentration camps in the mid-1930s, the establishment of ghettos to segregate Jews from the rest of the population and the boycotting and later destruction of Jewish-owned business around the same time.

In addition to the European Jewish population, the Holocaust targeted various groups such as persons with disabilities (due to the Nazi party's beliefs in ''genetic purity''), ethnic Slavs and Soviet prisoners of war, gay men, the Roma community and perceived political and religious dissidents. The total number of individuals killed during this time is estimated to be 17 million, with millions more having to live with the trauma from this blight on human history.