The Holocaust began 14 years before the war. Hitler started his slow rise to political power when he joined a political party called the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, meaning German Worker’s Party. The name was later changed to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, adding the words Nation Socialist before. Hitler eventually was named Chancellor and turned his reign into a dictatorship (Lace 59). The Nazi’s sought to legitimize their power and called themselves the German Reich, taking inspiration from the past (World War II in Europe). Hitler entered office with the goal of genocide to achieve racial purity. He wanted to exterminate all races, especially Jews, that he considered unworthy. He believed in the master race, considering Aryan’s to be superior to all (Rossel 12). He invaded and occupied countries, wiping out their Jewish populations and leaving them in ruins. He took Belgium, Poland, France, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in a plan to rule the world and rid it of the “illness” that was the Jews. (World War II in Europe) The Holocaust is a time in history when millions of people were persecuted in Europe by being sent to live in ghettos and eventually being deported to concentration camps where they were systematically annihilated until the Allied forces liberated the remaining survivors. Hitler wanted the Jews separated from society and forced them to wear identifying badges or armbands