What is meant by “Holocaust” or “Shoah?”
By “Holocaust” (the Greek word for sacrifice of a burnt offering) as well as “Shoah,” which is the Hebrew word for “Catastrophe,” we mean the near total extermination of a distinct group of persons through violence. Here we are referring to Jews who lived in areas controlled by the Third Reich. Loss of citizenship, deportation, and incarceration with forced labor, things which have always existed and exist today, should not be included since they do not result in the physical destruction of these groups. In the mind of the public the opinion is often created that simply depriving Jews of civil rights during the Third Reich was part of the Holocaust. But if this were true, then depriving blacks in South Africa until the end of last century, Palestinians in Israel and the territories occupied by it, or the (partial) deprivation of civil right of Blacks and Native Americans in the USA until the middle of the 20th century would also have to be described as part of a Holocaust.
