An estimated 6 million Jews died in the years from 1933 to 1945. Europe had a history of anti-Semitism, but the Holocaust was unique in scope, barbarity, and concentration on the annihilation of one people (genocide). Moreover, anti-Semitism was given legal sanction. The Holocaust was directed by the Nazi dictator Adolf HITLER, aided by a vast bureaucracy managed by Heinrich HIMMLER , Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Mueller, and Adolf Eichmann. The Prewar Period Hitler outlined his anti-Semitic program in Mein …showed first 75 words of 629 total…

…showed last 75 words of 629 total…mental scars plagued survivors and even the children of survivors. An aspect of human cruelty was exposed more brutal than the civilized world cared to admit. This gave rise to theological questions that trouble Jewish and non-Jewish religious thinkers. The Nuremberg trials held immediately after World War II avoided assigning responsibility for the Holocaust, but later war-crimes trials--many sparked by the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann--have dealt directly with the Holocaust and its perpetrators.