Victims and survivors
The Jews are the best-known victims of the Nazis, but they were certainly not the only people to be persecuted by Hitler's regime. Other targeted groups included people with mental or physical disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, trade unionists, Communists, socialists and other political dissidents, Slavs, black people and a group that the Nazis defined as 'asocial', which included homosexuals, prostitutes, Gypsies and thieves.
All of these groups suffered horribly under the Nazis. In addition, a minimum of eight million people were murdered by the Germans and their collaborators.
- The Jews
How two thirds of European Jews perished - The Gypsies
Although 80% were killed, their fate has not been acknowledged - The homosexuals
The persecution that is least documented and least recompensed - Other persecuted groups
'Subhumans', Slavs, religious dissidents, political opponents
Badges worn in Nazi concentration camps
This Nazi poster shows the badges worn by inmates of the camps.
Top row: Red (Communists, Social Democrats, anarchists and other 'enemies of the state'); green (German criminals); blue (foreign forced labourers); brown (Gypsies/Roma); pink (male homosexuals); purple (Jehovah's Witnesses); black ('asocials' – vagrants, prostitutes, homeless, alcoholics, 'work shy').
Second row: The horizontal bar denotes a 'second-timer' – a prisoner who had been released but was rearrested for a second offence. Many of these prisoners – even, in the early days, Jews – were released when they were thought to have been 'rehabilitated'.
Third row: The black circles denote prisoners assigned to a penal colony, usually a quarry or gravel pit.
Fourth row: The addition of a yellow triangle to make a six-pointed star denoted Jews, the different colours indicating their other classifications (for example, a Jewish foreign labourer)
Other badges
– Two yellow triangles with a black border: a Jew arrested for 'race defilement' (having sex with a non-Jew)
– Red triangle on top of a yellow triangle: Jewish political prisoner. If there is a dot beneath it, this means that the prisoner has been assigned to a punishment detail
– Circle with a dot in the middle: prisoner under special surveillance
– Red triangle pointing upwards: Wehrmacht (army) prisoner
– Red triangle with a 'P': Polish political prisoner
– Red triangle with an 'T': Czech (from German Tscheche) political prisoner.