Holocaust

In the late 20th century, the term Holocaust (Greek, "a completely (holos)
burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering") was introduced to refer to the
attempt of Nazi Germany to exterminate those groups of people it found
"undesirable".

The term is primarily used to refer to the systematic extermination of the
approximately 6 million of the 9.5 million Jews living in Europe before the
war, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis
themselves (written and photographed), eye-witness testimony (by survivors,
perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various
countries under occupation.

In some circles, the term holocaust is used to describe the systematic
murder of the other groups which were exterminated in the same circumstances
by the Nazis, including ethnic Roma and Sinti (also known as Gypsies),
political dissidents, communists, homosexuals, mental patients, Jehovah's
Witnesses, Russians, Poles, and other Slavs, raising the total number of
victims of Nazis to between ten and fourteen million civilians, and up to 4
million POWs. Today, the term is also used to describe other attempts at
genocide, both before and after World War II.

Shoa, also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, Hebrew for "Destruction", is the Hebrew
term for the Holocaust. It is used by many Jews and a growing number of
Christians due to theological discomfort with the literal meaning of the
word Holocaust; it is considered theologically offensive to imply that the
Jews of Europe were a sacrifice to God. It is nonetheless recognized that
most people who use the term Holocaust do not intend such a meaning.
Similarly, many Roma (Gypsy) people use the word Porajmos, meaning
"Devouring" to describe the Nazi attempt to exterminate that group.

One feature of the Nazi Holocaust that distinguishes it from other mass
murders was the systematic method with which the mass killings were
conducted. Detailed lists of present, and future, potential victims were
made and meticulous records of the killings have been found. In addition,
considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find
increasingly efficient means of killing more people, for example, by
switching from carbon monoxide poisoning to the use of zyklon B in the
Reinhard death camps of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, as well as Maidanek, and
Auschwitz--gas vans using carbon monoxide for mass killings were used in the
Chelmno death camp.

In addition to mass killings, Nazis conducted many experiments with
prisoners, children inclusive. Dr. Josef Mengele, one of the most widely
known Nazis, was known as the "Angel of Death" by the inmates of Auschwitz,
for his experiments.

The full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not
known until after the war. However, numerous rumors and eye-witness accounts
from escapees and others did give some indication that Jews were being
killed in large numbers. Some protests were held. For example on October 29,
1942 in the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures held a
public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.

Concentration and Extermination Camps

Concentration camps for, "undesirables," were spread throughout Europe, with
new camps being created near centers of dense "undesirable" populations,
often focusing on heavily Jewish, Polish intelligentsia, communists, or Roma
groups. Most of the camps were located on the area of General Government.

Concentration camps for Jews and other, "undesirables," also existed in Nazi
Germany itself, and while not specifically designed for systematic
extermination, many concentration camp prisoners died because of harsh
conditions or were executed.

Some camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, combined slave labor with systematic
extermination. Upon arrival in these camps, prisoners were divided into two
groups: those too weak for work were immediately murdered in gas chambers
(which were sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned, while
others were first used for slave labor in factories or industrial
enterprises located in the camp or nearby. The Nazis also forced some
prisoners to work in the removal of the corpses and to harvest elements of
the bodies. Gold teeth were extracted from the corpses and women's hair
(shaved from the heads of victims before they entered the gas chambers) was
recycled for use in products such as rugs and socks.

Three camps--Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka II--were used exclusively for
extermination. Only a small number of prisoners were kept alive to work at
the task of disposing of the bodies of people murdered in the gas chambers.

The transport was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail
freight cars.

Jews

Anti-Semitism was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its
history extends far back throughout many centuries during the course of
Judaism). Adolf Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism was laid out in his 1925
book Mein Kampf, which became popular in Nazi Germany once he acquired
political power. On April 1, 1933 the recently elected Nazis under Julius
Streicher organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Nazi
Germany (the last remaining Jewish enterprises in Nazi Germany were closed
on July 6, 1939). This policy helped to usher-in a series of anti-Semitic
acts that would eventually culminate in the Jewish Holocaust.

In many cities throughout Europe, Jews had been living in concentrated
areas. During the first years of World War II, the Nazis formalized the
borders of these areas and restricted movement, creating modern ghettos to
which Jews were confined. The ghettos were, in effect, prisons, in which
many Jews died from hunger and disease; others were executed by the Nazis
and their collaborators. Concentration camps for Jews existed in Nazi
Germany itself. During the invasion of the Soviet Union over 3,000 special
killing units (Einsatzgruppen) followed the Armed Forces and conducted mass
killings of the Jewish population that lived on Soviet territory. Entire
communities were wiped out by being rounded up, robbed of their possessions
and clothing, and shot at the edges of ditches.

In January of 1942, during the Wannsee conference, Nazi leaders agreed on
what Nazi ideologists called the "final solution of the Jewish question"
(Endlšsung der Judenfrage). Dr. Josef Buhler pushed Heydrich to take off the
final solution in the General Government. They began to systematically
deport the Jewish populations of the ghettos and from all occupied
territories to extermination camps, such as Auschwitz and Treblinka II.

Homosexuals

Homosexuals were another of the groups targeted during the time of the
Holocaust. However, the Nazi party made no attempt to exterminate all
homosexuals; according to Nazi law, being homosexual itself was not grounds
for arrest. Some prominent members of the Nazi leadership were known to
other Nazi leaders to be homosexual, which may account for the fact that the
leadership offered mixed signals on how to deal with homosexuals. Some
leaders clearly wanted homosexuals exterminated; others wanted them left
alone, while others wanted laws against homosexual acts enforced, but
otherwise allowed homosexuals to live as other citizens did.

Estimates vary wildly as to the number of homosexuals killed. They range
from as low as 10,000 to as high as 600,000. The large variance is partly
dependent on how researchers tally those who were Jewish and homosexual, or
even Jewish, homosexual and communist. In addition, records as to the
reasons for internment remain non-existent in many areas. See Homosexuals in
Nazi Germany for more information.

Gypsies

Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Roma people of Europe was seen by
many as a particularly bizarre application of Nazi racial science. Nazi
German anthropologists were forced to contend with the fact that Gypsies
were descendants of the original Aryan invaders of India, who made their way
back to Europe. Ironically, this made them no less Aryan than the German
people itself, in practice if not in theory. This dilemma was resolved by
Professor Hans Gunther, a leading racial scientist, who wrote:

     "The Gypsies have indeed retained some elements from their Nordic home,
     but they are descended from the lowest classes of the population in
     that region. In the course of their migration, they absorbed the blood
     of the surrounding peoples, thus becoming an Oriental, West-Asiatic
     racial mixture with an addition of Indian, mid-Asiatic, and European
     strains."

As a result, however, and despite discriminatory measures, some groups of
Roma, including the Sinti and Lalleri tribes of Germany, were spared
deportation and death. Remaining Gypsy groups suffered much like the Jews
(and in some instances, were degraded even more than Jews). In Eastern
Europe, Gypsies were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS
Einsatzgruppen in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and
Treblinka.

Others

Slavic people were targeted by the Nazis, mostly intellectuals and prominent
people, although there were some mass murders and instances of genocide
(Croatian Ustashe as the most notorious example).

During "Operation Barbarossa", the German invasion of the Soviet Union
1941-1944, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Russian army POWs were
arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading Nazi German armies, in
particular by the notorious Waffen S.S., or were shipped to the many
extermination camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic
extraction. Thousands of Russian peasant villages were annihilated by Nazi
German troops for more or less the same reason.

Around 2000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where they
were held for political and ideological reasons, as they refused involvement
in politics, would not say "Heil Hitler" and did not serve in the Nazi
German army. - See Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust.

On August 18, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered an end to the systematic euthanasia
of mentally ill and handicapped people due to protests within Nazi Germany.

Extent of the Holocaust

The exact number of people killed by the Nazi regime is still subject to
further research. Recently declassified British and Soviet documents have
indicated the total may be somewhat higher than previously believed [1].
However, the following estimates are considered to be highly reliable.

   * 5.6 - 6.1 million Jews
   * 3.5 - 6 million Slavic civilians
   * 2.5 - 4 million POWs
   * 1 - 1.5 million political dissidents
   * 200,000 - 800,000 Roma & Sinti
   * 200,000 - 300,000 handicapped
   * 10,000 - 250,000 homosexuals
   * 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses

The Triangles

To identify prisoners in the camps according to their "offense", they were
required to wear colored triangles on their clothing. Although the colors
used differed from camp to camp, the colors most commonly were:

   * Yellow: Jews -- two overlaid to form a Star of David, with the word
     "Jude" (Jew) inscribed
   * Red: political dissidents, including communists
   * Green: common criminals
   * Purple: Jehovah's Witnesses
   * Blue: immigrants
   * Brown: Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)
   * Black: Lesbians and "anti-socials"
   * Pink: Gay men

Historical Interpretations

As with any historical event, scholars continue to argue over what, exactly,
happened, and why. Among the major questions historians have sought to
answer are,

   * how many people were killed in the Holocaust?
   * who was directly involved in the killing?
   * who authorized the killing?
   * who knew about the killing?
   * why did people directly participate in, authorize, or tacitly accept
     the killing?

Functionalism versus Intentionalism

A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of
functionalism versus intentionalism. Intentionalists argue that the
Holocaust was planned by Hitler from the very beginning. Functionalists hold
that the Holocaust was started in 1942 as a result of the failure of the
Nazi deportation policy and the impending military losses in Russia. They
claim that extermination fantasies outlined in Hitler's Mein Kampf and other
Nazi literature were mere propaganda and did not constitute concrete plans.

Another controversy was started by the historian Daniel Goldhagen, who
argues that ordinary Germans were knowing and willing participants in the
Holocaust, which he claims had its roots in a deep eliminative German
anti-Semitism. Others claim that while anti-Semitism undeniably existed in
Nazi Germany, the extermination was unknown to many and had to be enforced
by the dictatorial Nazi apparatus.

Revisionists and Deniers

Some groups, usually branded as Neo-Nazis, deny that the Holocaust occurred
at all. They are commonly referred to as "Holocaust deniers".

Holocaust revisionism claims that far fewer than 6 million Jews were killed,
and that the killing was not a result of deliberate Nazi policy. Although
Holocaust revisionists claim to present documentary evidence to support
their claims, critics argue that the evidence is flawed, the research is
specious, and the conclusions are pre-determined. Many claim that such
revisionism is a form of Anti-Semitism and tantamount to denial.

Holocaust theology

In light of the magnitude of what was seen in the Holocaust, many people
have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and
actions in the world. How can people still have any faith after the
Holocaust? For the theological responses to questions raised by the
Holocaust, see Holocaust theology.

Origin and use of the term

The word 'Holocaust', from the Greek word holokauston meaning "a burnt
sacrifice offered to God", originally referred to a sacrifice Jews were
required to make by the Torah, and later to large scale catastrophes or
massacres. Due to the theological meaning that this word carries, many Jews
find the use of this word problematic, as it could imply that Jews were a
sacrifice. Instead of holocaust many Jews prefer the Hebrew word Shoah,
which means "desolation".

While nowadays the term 'Holocaust' usually refers to the above-mentioned
large-scale killings of Jews, it is also sometimes used to refer to other
occurrences of genocide, especially the Armenian Holocaust, the murder of
over a million Armenians by the Young Turk government in 1915. However, the
Turkish government officially denies that there was any genocide, claiming
that most of the Armenian deaths resulted from armed conflict, disease and
famine during the turmoil of World War I.

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The word holocaust can also be used as a general term for any overwhelmingly
massive deliberate loss of life, such as that which would result from
nuclear war, hence the phrase "Nuclear Holocaust".

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