The Persecution of Non-Jewish Groups

In addition to the European Jews, the Nazi regime murdered millions of people from other nations and races. As early as 1939, the Nazis began to kill tens of thousands of disabled, retarded, and mentally ill Germans, who were considered racially harmful, under the guise of "Euthanasia". When Poland was occupied in 1939, the Einsatzgruppen embarked on the systematic murder of the Polish elite and intelligentsia as part of their plan to eradicate Polish culture and turn the Poles into a slave nation. The war against the Soviet Union was perceived as a war of annihilation that was vital in order to capture the living space (lebensraum) that the Aryan race needed and was destined to have. A total of 3.5 million Soviet prisoners, as well as millions of other Soviet citizens, were therefore murdered. The Gypsies (Sinti and Roma), similarly to the Jews, were persecuted by the Nazis due to their ethnic origins, and hundreds of thousands of them were murdered. The reign of terror imposed by the Nazis throughout occupied Europe led to the murder of tens of thousands of additional civilians. 

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