Antisemitism is the belief that Jews are an inferior people and therefore undeserving of basic human rights. An individual holding such prejudices is termed an antisemite. Though antisemitism had a long history in Europe, it took on a newly pseudoscientific character in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, paving the way for Nazi propaganda when the party took power.

The term “Aryan” has a long and complex history and was initially a self-designation by early Indo-Iranian peoples. Because these peoples spoke languages related to most modern European languages, the term came to be associated with “Proto-Indo-Europeans”—i.e., a group of prehistoric people who presumably dispersed throughout Europe and parts of Asia, giving rise to today’s various Indo-European languages. After accruing racial supremacist associations, the term was ultimately co-opted by Adolf Hitler, who glorified Germans as members of a chosen Aryan race that excluded ethnic/racial groups such as Jewish, Black, Romani, and Slavic peoples.

Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in present-day northern Germany. It was originally established as a prisoner of war camp in 1943.