Holocaust, the

Holocaust, the the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime during the period 1941–45. More than 6 million European Jews, as well as members of other persecuted groups, such as gypsies and homosexuals, were murdered at concentration camps such as Auschwitz. The term Holocaust denial is now used for the mistaken belief or assertion that the Holocaust did not happen, or was greatly exaggerated.

The word holocaust was originally recorded in Middle English denoting a Jewish sacrificial offering which is burnt completely on an altar; from this it was extended to mean a sacrifice on a large scale, and then a complete destruction or massacre. (It comes ultimately from Greek holokauston, from holos ‘whole’ + kaustos ‘burnt’.) The specific application was introduced by historians during the 1950s, probably as an equivalent to Hebrew ḥurban and shoah ‘catastrophe’ (used in the same sense); but it had been foreshadowed by contemporary references to the Nazi atrocities as a ‘holocaust’ in the sense of slaughter on a large scale.