Holocaust

   The word derives from Greek and Latin and is translated as “something wholly burnt up” and, in its broader meaning, “a total destruction.” The Holocaust refers to the Nazi objective of annihilating every Jewish man, woman, and child who fell under their control. By the end of World War II, approximately six million Jews had been murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Elie Wiesel is generally credited with associating the word “Holocaust” with the murder of six million Jews, although the term appears to have been used on the cover of the 3 October 1941 issue of The American Hebrew. In this issue there appeared a photograph of a large partly open gate, upon which is a Star of David, that shows two men, a French army officer or policeman and a man dressed in prayer attire, carrying a Torah scroll from a synagogue in northern France. The caption below the photograph reads in large print, “Before the Holocaust.” Although Wiesel used the term in the 1950s, its general usage entered the mainstream during the late 1960s.

   The term today has stirred controversy because other victims of the Nazi terror, such as the Gypsies and people of Slavic ancestry from Eastern Europe, claim that they were as much victims in the Holocaust as were the Jews. To differentiate between the more inclusive use of the word “Holocaust” and its special meaning within the Jewish community, many Jews have substituted the Hebrew word Shoah or Churban for the Nazi genocide.