The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. While persecution began in 1933, the 'Final Solution'—the plan to murder all Jews in Europe—was formalized at the Wannsee Conference in 1942. This industrialization of death led to the creation of extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, where victims were murdered in gas chambers. Approximately six million Jews were killed, along with millions of others including Romani people, people with disabilities, Soviet POWs, and political dissidents. The Holocaust remains the ultimate example of the extremes of human hatred and state-organized atrocity, leading to the creation of the term 'genocide' and the establishment of international human rights laws after the war.