In 1939 World War II began and until 1941 Hitler occupied almost all of Europe , including Poland — where millions of Jews were living at that time — and France . In 1941 , following the invasion of the Soviet Union , the Final Solution began , an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale , aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people , and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in political Europe , inclusive of European North Africa ( pro-Nazi Vichy-North Africa and Italian Libya ) . This genocide , in which approximately six million Jews were murdered methodically and with horrifying cruelty , is known as The Holocaust or '' Shoah '' ( Hebrew term ) . In Poland , one million Jews were murdered in gas chambers at the Auschwitz camp complex alone
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Jewish history