Changes

[[Image:Hgdye56.jpg|right|300px|thumb|"Selection" of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers.]]

[[Image:Hgdye56.jpg|right|300px|thumb|"Selection" of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers.]]

The '''Holocaust''' is a word based on the Yiddish and Hebrew word ''hurban'' (destruction), and the Greek word ''holokaustos'' (''holos'': complete, and ''kaustos'': a sacrificial or burnt offering to a god), and has been used specifically to describe the period of 1933-1945 in Nazi Germany when Jews were barred from social life and work, imprisoned en masse, and ultimately targeted for extermination under the policy of ''die Endlosung'' (the Final Solution).  The word ''holocaust'' was chosen by survivors in reference to the large number of bodies fed to the crematoria of the extermination camps built for that purpose. In Hebrew, the Holocaust is known by the word "''shoah''."

The '''Holocaust''' is a word based on the Yiddish and Hebrew word ''hurban'' (destruction), and the Greek word ''holokaustos'' (''holos'': complete, and ''kaustos'': a sacrificial or burnt offering to a god), and has been used specifically to describe the period of 1933-1945 in Nazi Germany when Jews were barred from social life and work, imprisoned en masse, and ultimately targeted for extermination under the policy of ''die Endlösung'' (the Final Solution).  The word ''holocaust'' was chosen by survivors in reference to the large number of bodies fed to the crematoria of the extermination camps built for that purpose. In Hebrew, the Holocaust is known by the word "''shoah''."

==Origins==

==Origins==

The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves.  When the Soviets threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes.  The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a bare minimum of one million.

The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves.  When the Soviets threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes.  The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a bare minimum of one million.

==Endlosung==

==Endlösung==

[[Image:Heydrich.jpg|right|150px|thumb|''Obersturbanfuhrer'' Reinhard Heydrich, the man who convened the Wannsee Conference with the intention of determining a "final solution to the Jewish question".]]

[[Image:Heydrich.jpg|right|150px|thumb|''Obersturbanfuhrer'' Reinhard Heydrich, the man who convened the Wannsee Conference with the intention of determining a "final solution to the Jewish question".]]

====Wannsee Conference====

====Wannsee Conference====

On January 20, 1942 at a lakeside villa near Berlin named Wannsee a conference was convened by Heydrich to implement methods and ideas for a "final solution to the Jewish question" (''die Endlosung der Judenfrage'').  At the conference were fifteen men, among them Heydrich’s head of Jewish affairs, [[Adolf Eichmann]].  The men present were highly educated, and represented government agencies, such as the Gestapo, the Race and Resettlement Office, the S.S., as well as a representative from the General Government in Poland.  As Heydrich himself explained near the beginning of the conference, ideas were bartered about as to relocating Jews:

On January 20, 1942 at a lakeside villa near Berlin named Wannsee a conference was convened by Heydrich to implement methods and ideas for a "final solution to the Jewish question" (''die Endlösung der Judenfrage'').  At the conference were fifteen men, among them Heydrich’s head of Jewish affairs, [[Adolf Eichmann]].  The men present were highly educated, and represented government agencies, such as the Gestapo, the Race and Resettlement Office, the S.S., as well as a representative from the General Government in Poland.  As Heydrich himself explained near the beginning of the conference, ideas were bartered about as to relocating Jews:

:''“Another possible solution of the [Jewish] problem has now taken the place of emigration—i.e., evacuation of the Jews to the east…Such activities are, however, to be considered as provisional actions, but practical experience is already being collected which is of greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish problem.”''

:''“Another possible solution of the [Jewish] problem has now taken the place of emigration—i.e., evacuation of the Jews to the east…Such activities are, however, to be considered as provisional actions, but practical experience is already being collected which is of greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish problem.”''