Four Perfect Pebbles

Content Warning: The section of the guide contains discussions of discrimination, graphic violence, and death.

The word “Holocaust” refers to the mass destruction or killing of a group of people, and is used in reference to the genocide of at least six million Jews by the Nazis from 1933-1945. The Holocaust was perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, which rose to power through the 1920s and early 1930s in Germany following World War I. Germany was in a state of economic despair and extreme debt from the war, and Hitler’s party promised prosperity and growth. These promises were enticing to the German people, as was the opportunity to find someone or something to blame. Hitler’s ideology was fundamentally rooted in antisemitism, which he positioned as central to Germany’s supposed downfall. Hitler turned his narrative against groups that he felt were either holding Germany back or actively working against it,  with Jewish people singled out as the primary scapegoat for economic hardship and national humiliation following World War I. Roma people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities were also targeted, as they did not fit into the Nazi vision of a "racially pure" society. Additionally, communists and those believed to be supporters of the Soviet Union were persecuted, as the Nazis viewed Bolshevism as a Jewish-led conspiracy.