Approximately six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Holocaust.
The figure includes Jewish men, women, and children killed through mass shootings, extermination camps, starvation, disease, forced labor, deportations, and other forms of persecution. It is an estimate because the Nazi regime destroyed records, borders changed during the war, and many victims were killed without individual registration.
Historians reconstruct the total using prewar censuses, Nazi records, deportation lists, camp documents, demographic studies, and postwar investigations. The six-million estimate does not include all other groups persecuted and murdered by the Nazis, such as Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war, and civilians targeted for political or racial reasons. The Holocaust specifically refers to the genocide of Europe’s Jews.