The primary victims of the Holocaust were European Jews, but the Nazi regime targeted many other groups for persecution, mass murder, and in some cases total annihilation. The Holocaust is generally understood as the genocide of the Jews, carried out within a broader system of Nazi terror that killed millions of non‑Jewish victims as well.

Who Were the Main Victims?

1. Jewish People

Nazi Germany defined Jews as a racial enemy and pursued their total destruction across Europe. Around six million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered in ghettos, mass shootings, and extermination camps such as Auschwitz‑Birkenau and Treblinka.

Key points:

  • Jews were stripped of rights, forced into ghettos, and deported in mass transports to killing centers.
  • In Auschwitz alone, about one million of the roughly 1.1 million people murdered were Jews.
  • This systematic attempt to destroy the Jewish people is the core of what historians call the Holocaust or Shoah.

A typical deportation train might carry thousands of people packed into sealed cattle cars, with little food or water, many dying before reaching the camps.

2. Roma and Sinti (Romani People)

The Roma and Sinti, often called “Gypsies” in Nazi documents, were also targeted as a racial enemy. They faced deportation, mass shootings, and gassing in camps such as Auschwitz‑Birkenau and Treblinka.

  • Estimates of Romani victims range roughly from 250,000 to 500,000 killed.
  • Romani families were subjected to forced labor, medical experiments, and extermination similar to Jews in many regions.

3. People with Disabilities

People with physical and mental disabilities were among the earliest victims of Nazi mass murder.

  • Under so‑called “euthanasia” and eugenics policies, at least 300,000 disabled people were killed, and about 375,000 were forcibly sterilized.
  • The T‑4 program, begun in 1939, used gas chambers in hospitals and became a model for later extermination methods used against Jews and Roma.

4. Slavic Populations and Other Civilians

Nazi ideology viewed many Slavic peoples—especially Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Serbs—as inferior and expendable.

  • Nearly 100,000 Polish elites (intellectuals, clergy, community leaders) were deliberately murdered to cripple Polish society.
  • Around two million Soviet urban residents died under starvation policies, and about one million rural inhabitants were killed during so‑called anti‑partisan operations.
  • In Auschwitz, some 70,000 Poles and about 21,000 Roma and Sinti were killed, along with thousands of other nationalities.

5. Soviet Prisoners of War

Soviet POWs suffered extreme brutality and neglect, and millions died in Nazi custody.

  • About 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war were killed through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor.
  • They were often kept in open‑air camps with almost no shelter, food, or medical care.

6. Political Opponents and “Dissidents”

People seen as political enemies or threats to Nazi rule were also persecuted and often killed.

These included:

  • Communists, socialists, trade unionists, and other leftists.
  • Social democrats, anarchists, and various political dissidents who opposed or were suspected of opposing the regime.

Many were imprisoned, tortured, or murdered in concentration camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald.

7. Religious Minorities

Some religious groups were persecuted for their beliefs and refusal to conform to Nazi demands.

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses were targeted for refusing military service and loyalty oaths; many were imprisoned and some executed.
  • Certain Catholic clergy and other Christian leaders who opposed Nazi policies were arrested, sent to camps, or killed.

8. LGBTQ+ People

Men accused of homosexual acts were criminalized and labeled as threats to the “moral” and demographic health of the nation.

  • Many were arrested under harsh interpretations of German law, sent to concentration camps, and marked with the pink triangle.
  • They faced severe abuse, forced labor, and high death rates in the camps.

9. Other Targeted Groups

Nazi persecution also extended to various other communities.

  • Spanish Republicans who had fled Franco’s regime and were later captured fell into Nazi hands and were sent to camps.
  • Freemasons, some people of African descent (including so‑called “Rhineland bastards” in Germany), and other minorities seen as “non‑Aryan” or politically suspect were also targeted.

Numbers and Definitions: Who “Counts” as a Victim?

Historians distinguish between:

  • Victims of the Holocaust in the narrow sense: primarily Jews targeted for total annihilation as a people.
  • Victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder more broadly: all those groups persecuted, imprisoned, or killed under Nazi rule for racial, political, religious, social, or other reasons.

Commonly cited figures include:

  • Around six million Jewish victims.
  • Hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti.
  • Hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
  • Millions of Soviet POWs and civilians, Poles, and other occupied‑territory civilians.

Museums and scholars caution that no single round number (like “11 million victims”) fully captures the complexity of who was targeted, how, and why, and they emphasize careful use of sources and definitions.

Why This Still Matters Today

The range of victims shows that the Holocaust was not just a story of one group versus another, but of a regime that set out to reshape society through terror, racism, and systematic murder. Remembering who the victims were—Jews at the center of the genocide, alongside Roma, disabled people, Slavs, Soviet POWs, political opponents, LGBTQ+ people, and others—helps explain why present‑day discussions about hate, discrimination, and human rights repeatedly look back to this history.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.