Claim: Adolf Hitler caused the murder of at least 5.5 million Jews during the Holocaust.

Holocaust victims were people who were targeted by the government of Nazi Germany for various discriminatory practices due to ethnicity , religion , political beliefs , or sexual orientation . These institutionalized practices came to be called The Holocaust , and began with legalized social discrimination against specific groups , and involuntary hospitalization , euthanasia , and forced sterilization of those considered physically or mentally unfit for society . These practices escalated during World War II to include non-judicial incarceration , confiscation of property , forced labor , sexual slavery , medical experimentation , and death through overwork , undernourishment , and execution through a variety of methods , with genocide of different groups as the primary goal .   According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -LRB- USHMM -RRB- , the country 's official memorial to the Holocaust , `` The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II . '' Of those murdered for being Jewish , more than half were Ashkenazi Polish Jews .