The Holocaust

The Holocaust is the name applied to the systematic state-sponsored persecution and genocide of various ethnic, religious and political groups during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program, progressing to the later use of killing squads and extermination camps in a massive and centrally-organized effort to murder every possible member of the populations targeted by the Nazis.

Etymology and usage of the term

The word holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering", or "a burnt sacrifice offered to God". In Greek and Roman pagan rites, gods of the earth and underworld received dark animals, which were offered by night and burnt in full. Holocaust was later used to refer to a sacrifice Jews were required to make by the Torah. But since the mid-19th century, the word has been used by many authors to refer to large catastrophes and massacres, particularly those caused by immolation. Referring to the Second World War in the years following, writers in English tended to use the term in relation to events such as the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima, rather than the Nazi genocide; it was not until the 1970s that the latter began to become the conventional meaning of the word, when used unqualified, and with a capital letter.

Related Topics:
Greek - Holokauston - Pagan - Underworld - Torah - 19th century - Immolation - Dresden - Hiroshima

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The biblical word Shoa (????), also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, meaning "calamity" in Hebrew (and also used to refer to "destruction" since the Middle Ages), became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.{{ref|shoah}} Churban Europa, meaning "European Destruction" in Hebrew (as opposed to simply Churban, the destruction of the Second Temple), is also used. Many Roma (or 'Gypsy') people, who were also targeted during the Holocaust, use the word Porajmos, meaning "devouring".

Related Topics:
Hebrew - Middle Ages - 1940s - Second Temple - Roma - Porajmos

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Shoa is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of Christians and other people due to the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust as a reference to a sacrifice to God and also due to scholarly insistence that this largely archaic meaning somehow tilts the present meanings. There is also concern that the particular significance of the Holocaust would be lessened as use of the term becomes increasingly widespread in the latter half of the 20th century to refer generically to any mass killings such as the Rwandan Genocide and the actions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as 'holocausts'. The Armenians have long used the term in reference to their persecution by the Ottoman empire during World War I.

Related Topics:
Jew - Christians - Theologically - 20th century - Rwandan Genocide - Khmer Rouge - Cambodia - Armenians - Ottoman empire - World War I

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