| | [[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 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''." | + | 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''." |