The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and murder of six million Jewish people by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. Beginning with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and continuing until the end of the war in 1945, the Nazi regime used laws, propaganda, and ultimately mass killing to carry out one of the worst genocides in human history. Millions of others, including Roma, people with disabilities, and political prisoners, were also targeted and killed.