The Holocaust is an historic event which began in 1933 and ended in 1945, during which Nazi Germany persecuted and tried to eliminate the Jewish people, based on its antisemitic and racist ideology. It took place in the areas occupied by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.

The same racist ideology and belief in the racial superiority of the German people that was used to justify the murder of Jews was applied also to the Romani tribes, or “gypsies” of Europe. It is estimated that about 500,000 and possibly more Roma and Sinti were murdered in extermination camps and died of hunger and disease in forced labor and concentration camps. The “Romani Holocaust” has been largely unknown and it was not until 1982 that Germany recognized that it committed genocide against the Romani tribes. https://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en

Resistance to the Nazis took many forms from individual acts of courage to organized resistance. To die with dignity was a form of resistance. To survive hunger and demoralizing brutality, were acts of resistance and victory of the human spirit. The military strength of Nazi Germany and its allies, the concentration of Jews into ghettos, the thorough administrative system put in place, and the hostility of the civilian populations made it impossible for Jews to resist effectively, but it did not prevent them from trying. There were over a hundred uprisings, of which the best known is in the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw uprising in 1943 was the largest armed resistance against deportations to death camps. The revolt was defeated, but the courageous act of resistance helped raise Jewish morale and fueled resistance across Nazi occupied areas. The Warsaw uprising has been documented, including a detailed report with photographs prepared by an SS officer, known as the “Stroop Report”, used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes held after WWII.

The planned deportation of the Jews from within Bulgaria's pre-war borders (but not the areas annexed during the war) was never carried out. Bulgarian public figures protested against the deportation - among them Bulgarian Orthodox Church bishops, and persuaded the Tsar to postpone their deportation indefinitely. Their property was confiscated, they were forcibly relocated and all Jewish males between the ages of 20 and 40 were sent to forced labor, but the majority were not deported to the death camps. A monument is located in Charles Clore park in Tel Aviv. Its twin is in Bulgaria near the National Assembly in Sofia. Both monuments were initiated in 2013, when Bulgaria marked the 70th anniversary of the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews.