The Holocaust was not a strictly Jewish event that only involved the European Jewry as a culture. The Holocaust began with the euthanasia acts that began in 1939 when under the Nazi Party citizens that were racially German who were mentally ill, physically disabled, and incurable sick were gassed and killed. Along with European Jewry other groups such as Russian prisoners of war, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witness, gypsies and others were discriminated against and killed. Although the European Jewry made up the majority of those killed by Nazi Germany they were not the only ones affected by the Nazi's reign.
             The first to be affected by the Holocaust were those who in 1939 had been physically and mentally disadvantaged. These killings were considered "mercy killings" and under this euthanasia program "about eighty thousand people were killed in six different centers." These were not the only killing that occurred but they are the ones that any record of Hitler actually ordering and are therefore the most substantial evidence for the start of the Holocaust. Also, the killing of physically and mentally disadvantaged people meant that European Jewry were not the only to be subject to the horrors of the Nazi state. Another connection between the early euthanasia acts and the later death camps is that the chemists who performed these acts were and experimented with different poisons and carbon monoxide were moved to the East to continue their work there. Since the public had become aware of the actions being taken by the Nazi government the programs were slowed down and gradually moved out of Germany all together.
             Another argument that functionalist use is that although some intention was there to rid Germany of its Jewish population it was not focused on exterminating them completely. The same anti-Semitist sentiments were just as strong if not stronger in the Great Britain and France. This anti-Semitic...