The Holocaust
Hitler's antisemitic beliefs formed a major backbone of the Nazi Party. These policies gradually denied Jewish people their rights as German citizens. The government soon encouraged its paramilitary forces and regular citizens to destroy Jewish businesses (such as during Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," in November 1936), forced them to live in ghettos, and eventually transported them to their deaths in forced labor concentration and extermination camps.
Historians estimate the German government killed six million Jews and at least five million prisoners of war during the Holocaust.
Read this discussion of the Holocaust. Pay attention to the roots of antisemitism, which Hitler outlined in his bestselling book Mein Kampf, and how he convinced his enablers to commit such crimes against humanity.
Etymology and Usage of the Term
Child survivors of the Holocaust were filmed during the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army. January, 1945.
The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late nineteenth century, "holocaust" has primarily been used to refer to disasters or catastrophes.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used to describe Hitler's treatment of the Jews from as early as 1942, though it did not become a standard reference until the 1950s. By the late 1970s, however, the conventional meaning of the word became the Nazi genocide.
The biblical word Shoa, also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, meaning "destruction" in the Hebrew language, became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s. [1]
Shoah is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of others for a number of reasons, including the potentially theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust. Some refer to the Holocaust as "Auschwitz," transforming the most well-known death camp into a symbol of the whole genocide.
The word "genocide" was coined during the Holocaust.