holocaust
ˈhɒləkɔːst
noun
1.) destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war.
2.) the mass murder of Jewish people under the German Nazi regime during the period 1941–5. More than 6 million European Jews, as well as members of other persecuted groups such as Romani, gay people, and disabled people, were murdered at concentration camps such as Auschwitz.
3.) a Jewish sacrificial offering that was burned completely on an altar.
January 27, 2023 marks the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland. Founded in 2006, January 27th marks the day to honor and remember those that were murdered at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two. Although different countries honor on different days, the date need not matter but the importance to honor and lift up the 6 million Jews plus other victims (gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others marked unfit) that were brutally murdered. On this day, the United Nations read "The Book Of Names of Holocaust Victims" which lists in alphabetical order the 4.8 million Holocaust victims. However, there are several pages left blank to indicate and memorialize the one million unidentified Jewish victims.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland Nazi German death camp
The origin of the word "Holocaust" holds added horrific weight to the usage in the death camps. As shown above, one meaning for the word is "a Jewish sacrificial offering that was burned completely on an altar," thus a word from religious practices of the Jewish people, targeted, murdered by fire, gas, brutal treatment, and starvation. Hitler's mission was to abolish that which was impure and tainted the perfect "Aryan race" (in Nazi ideology) a white non-Jewish person, especially one of northern European origin or descent typically having blonde hair and blue eyes and regarded as belonging to a supposedly superior racial group) which not only included the Jewish people but also the developmentally disabled, homosexuals, Gypsies, and many others.
The importance of word usage to describe the horrific slaughter as well to honor these victims is important to those whose lives were lost or irreparable changed such as survivors and the family members of victims. Specifically, then, the usage of the word "genocide" meaning the systematic destruction of a people because of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or race is considered more favorable. Additionally, for the Jewish people prefer the Yiddish word for 'destruction' to describe their experience and in addition the Yiddish word "Sho ah" (catastrophe).
Another factor in keeping the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the very true reality that anti-Semitism is alive and increasingly active in current times. From the explosive rants of Kanye West, Kyrie Irving's post, signs above a Los Angeles building, and public views by political figures, these threaten to undermine the determination to see these atrocities happen 'never again.'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Babi Yar on Friday as Ukraine honored the memory of millions of victims in the Holocaust.
"We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred," Zelenskyy said. "Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy."
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