The
Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million
Jews during the Nazi genocide - in 1933 nine million Jews
lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied
by Nazi Germany during World War 2. By 1945 two out of every
three European Jews had been killed.
The number of children killed by the Nazis is not fathomable
and full statistics for the tragic fate of the children will
never be known. Estimates range as high as 1.5 million
murdered children during the Holocaust.
This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children,
tens of thousands of Gypsy
children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped
children.
Plucked from their homes and stripped of their childhoods,
the children had witnessed the murder of parents, siblings,
and relatives. They faced starvation, illness and brutal
labor, until they were consigned to the gas chambers.
