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Holocaust, originally, a religious rite in which an offering was entirely consumed by fire. In current usage, holocaust refers to any widespread human disaster, but as the term Holocaust it means the almost complete destruction of European Jews by Nazi Germany When the Nazi regime came to power in Germany in 1933, it immediately began to take systematic measures against Jews. The Nazi Party, government agencies, banks, and business enterprises made concerted efforts to eliminate Jews …

…thousands of inmates, while others died from starvation or disease. Large crematories were constructed to incinerate bodies. By the end of the war in 1945, millions of Jews—as well as Slavs, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists, and others targeted by the Nazis—had been killed or had died in the Holocaust. The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., opened in 1993 to commemorate the Holocaust.