The Jews were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust, which was a systematic extermination of approximately six million Jews and other minority groups by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Jews and other targeted groups were sent to concentration camps as part of the Nazi's plan to create a "pure" Aryan race and to eliminate those considered to be inferior or a threat to the Nazi regime. The camps served as both forced labor camps and extermination camps where prisoners were subjected to inhumane conditions, including forced labor, starvation, disease, and mass murder. The concentration camps became one of the defining symbols of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.