Concentration camps during the Holocaust The Holocaust was a brutal, disgusting and merciless period of history. The Holocaust refers to the “systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” (ushmm.org) The Nazis came to power in January 1933 in Germany. They assumed that Germans were “ethnically greater” and that Jews who were considered “mediocre” were a threat and a problem for German society. The Germans not only targeted Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, Russians, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. If those people were captured but not yet killed, they were sent to concentration camps. Concentration camps were introduced as harsh, dirty living camps and a very important feature of the regime. After Adolf Hitler became leader in January 1933, he created the first concentration camps in Germany (ushmm.org). Initially, the Nazis, local police, etc. they captured anyone who criticized the Nazis. These people included church leaders, communists, and socialists. The Nazis would throw them into local prisons to keep them confined. The Nazis quickly realized that this arrangement did not work so well. They came to a new resolution: to build large, sturdy camps to hold the thousands of prisoners. Soon, the prisoners were essentially concentrated in one area, and the Nazis called them the first “concentration camps” (theholocaustexplained.org). The living conditions in the camps were unbearable (fcit.usf.edu). Eventually, the Nazis spread across Europe, building around 20,000 more camps, but of all types. These included more concentrates... half the paper... the dren had survived. Terezin was very different from Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald. Terezin was not a concentration camp. It was a place where people went to avoid more unfortunate misfortune. Most of the families and elders were deported to Terezin (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). In conclusion, the Holocaust was a brutal, disgusting and merciless period of history. The Holocaust refers to the “systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators” (ushmm.org). When Adolf Hitler came to power, he established the first concentration camp in Germany. Concentration camps were built to hold prisoners, but not in a nice, friendly way. Concentration camps were developed to be brutal, unhappy, and dirty places. Millions and millions of people from the 1930s onwards died in these horrible camps.