Many people know the Holocaust as the worst act of inhumanity ever to occur. What some people don't realize is that similar events have occurred throughout history. A genocide, as the Collins Gage dictionary states, is “The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group,” and this is exactly what happens. Hitler's Holocaust was not entirely unique: during Hitler's rise to power, Stalin was committing his own genocide, which in itself was not all that different from Hitler's. Therefore, one could argue that Hitler's reign of terror was not the worst act of genocide that ever occurred. When Hitler seized power in Germany and declared himself sole dictator in 1933, all political parties except the Nazis were outlawed. (HB) From the beginning of his reign as dictator, Hitler slowly began to revoke all of the Jews' civil liberties that came with being citizens of the particular country in which they lived. This continued until Jews were considered second-class citizens. The poor treatment of Jews did not end there: Jews began to be beaten in the streets, and Jewish businesses were vandalized. At the outbreak of World War II, Jews were sent to ghettos where they remained until they were transferred to a labor or extermination camp. (WS) The conditions in these camps were atrocious, the smell of death hung in the air and these smells came from the incinerators and gas chambers used to kill Jews. The poor people who were sent to these gas chambers never knew what they were getting into, they were often told they were going to take a shower, but once the chamber doors were closed a deadly gas was released (usually Zyclon B gas). The victims slowly suffocate... middle of paper... the big difference between the methods that were imposed is that Hitler used gas chambers to kill the occupants of these camps en masse." The deliberate and systematic extermination of a group national, racial, political or cultural.” If we looked at all the major events that have happened throughout history and incorporated them with this definition, we will notice that Hitler's Holocaust is not unique, for example the Rwandan genocide and the Armenian genocide, all of which occurred. in the 20th century. and there are many more (over 30, some worse than others). Genocides have been part of human culture for centuries but, as evident in the case of the Holocaust, some of these genocides get more media coverage/ historical compared to others. On the basis of this we can say that the Holocaust, which was a genocide, was not a unique event in history.