Trace the evolution of the concept of ‘Holocaust’. What raises it up and above simple genocide? Student: Maeve Silver, History
Most historians would agree that writing about the Holocaust is emotionally challenging. It is
difficult to do it justice, and adequately show those who were murdered the respect that
they deserve. But it is important to look back to the root of the word ‘Holocaust’, and
understand why the slaughter of six million Jews and other groups of people, has come to be
known as that. Writing in the Washington Post , Barbara Feinman traces the concept back to
‘at least to the 3 rd century B.C.E’. She explains that the word came from ‘Holokaustos – from
the Greek holos – meaning whole, plus kaustos – meaning burnt. Burnt whole’. She also
defines it as the ‘great or total destruction of life, esp. by fire’. 1 This is perhaps a reference to
the ‘crematorium ovens’ that were used to burn the bodies of those massacred in the Nazi
concentration camps. ‘Holocaust’ can be traced back to 1895 and was used to describe the
Hamidian Massacres (also known as the Armenian massacres), where hundreds of thousands
of people were killed by Ottoman troops. It is important to understand why the Holocaust
(1941-1945) has (rightly) had so much recognition and remembrance. Perhaps throughout
the last eighty years, Holocaust education has been used to show how easy it is for a
genocide, a ‘complex process of systematic persecution and annihilation of a group of
people by a government’, to happen. 2
1 Barbara Feinman, ‘ What the Term Holocaust Has Come to Mean ’, The Washington Post (1983) <https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1983/04/10/what-the-term-holocaust-has-come-to- mean/1c0dc753-3013-4209-ac72-425fc15595b1/> [Accessed 04/12/2022], para. 2 2 Uğur Ümit Üngör, Genocide: New Perspectives on Its Causes, Courses and Consequences (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), p. 16
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