words: Genocide and Holocaust

Nearly 11 million civilians were killed during World War II. Poles, gypsies, homosexuals, the physically and mentally handicapped, dissident priests and nuns, political opponents, and intellectuals who were considered “enemies of the state” were eliminated. But Hitler and the Nazis waged a special war that resulted in the genocide of nearly six million Jews, fully two thirds of European Jewry.

The nazis employed the code term “the final solution” to refer to this particular war. The word Holcaust, which derives from the Greek word meaning “fully burnt,” is now most commonly used to refer to the genocide of European Jewry. The term Shoah, from the Hebrew meaning, “utterly destroyed,” also refers to this crime. (The Holacaust Project, Judy Chicago, pg. 15).