Editing Second World War (section)

== Occupation and genocide ==
The Second World War included large-scale occupation across Europe and Asia. Occupied territories were governed through military rule, civilian occupation administrations, annexation, collaborationist governments, and puppet states.

Nazi Germany carried out the Holocaust during the war. About six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Slavs, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and other targeted groups were also persecuted, imprisoned, or killed.<ref name="ushmm-holocaust-dates" />

German occupation policy used forced labour, deportation, confiscation, anti-partisan warfare, starvation policy, and mass execution. Eastern Europe was treated especially harshly because German policy there was tied to racial ideology and territorial colonization.

Japan committed mass atrocities in occupied territories. The Nanjing Massacre became one of the best-known Japanese atrocities in China. Japanese occupation systems also used prisoner abuse, forced labour, biological warfare, and sexual slavery.

The Soviet Union carried out deportations, executions, forced labour, and repression in territories it occupied or annexed. The Katyn massacre in 1940 involved the killing of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet NKVD.