The Jewish community refers to the Holocaust as the Shoah.
The Holocaust is a mass killing of human beings . The use of the term, coming from the Latin holocaustum , is linked to the genocide of some six million Jews during World War II carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany .
The Holocaust, in this sense, was a planned extermination program devised by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders who appealed to the industrialized and systematized murder of certain social groups. While the main victims were Jews, other groups were also persecuted, such as gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled. Therefore, although anti-Semitism was one of the driving forces of the Holocaust, Nazism was established as a regime of hatred towards different social groups that had multiple expressions of racism, xenophobia and discrimination.
Origin of the Holocaust
The plan that Hitler executed was created and designed by the commander-in-chief of the SS (military, police and security organization of Nazi Germany ): Heinrich Himmler . This man, who would later become Minister of the Interior, methodically established the elimination of the various social groups that, in his point of view, prevented the creation of the famous Aryan race that would give solidity, power and superiority to the German nation. This is how he moved forward with his eugenics plan.
The massacre , considered by the Nazis as the "final solution to the Jewish problem" , was carried out in various stages. Authorities established concentration camps where prisoners were used as slaves until they died, either from illness , physical exhaustion, or because they were murdered.
Those responsible for the Holocaust were tried for committing crimes against humanity.
The concentration camps
There were many extermination camps that were set up during the time that Hitler was in charge of the country. Among them appears, for example, that of Belzec , which was one of the first to be implemented.
To that place we should add others that, unfortunately, have become well-known settings in the history of the 20th century . This would be the case of the Auschwitz camp, which was created with the idea that it would be the site where Jews found throughout the European continent would be murdered. Extermination camps also operated in Sobibor and Treblinka .
Various cruel methods were used to end the lives of prisoners in these concentration camps. Many died from the forced labor to which they were subjected, from the beatings given to them by Nazi soldiers, from being shot, or even because of the hunger they suffered.
On the other hand, in the territories annexed by Nazi Germany , ghettos or ghettos were created where Jews were locked up to be transported on freight trains to the aforementioned camps. Those who did not die on the journey were eventually killed by gassing.
It should be considered that the definition of holocaust varies according to sources. The number of victims depends on the historical studies considered: there are those who even go so far as to deny these situations and the existence of the gas chambers, a position that is mentioned as Holocaust denialism .
Some historians claim that the victims of the Holocaust were more than six million.
Features of the Holocaust
The Holocaust, in short, was a planned genocide that Nazism implemented. It was launched in 1941 and lasted until 1945 .
Although Jews were the main victims, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses and communists, among others, were also persecuted and murdered. Some estimates put the death toll at more than 6 million people .
It is estimated that there were more than 42,000 facilities dedicated to the Holocaust . There are historians who maintain that half a million individuals were part of the actions necessary to capture, transfer to detention centers and kill the victims.
Many of the details became known after the liberation of the camps, especially from the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. The Nuremberg Trials and other postwar justice mechanisms also helped collect Holocaust testimonies.
Among the portraits of the time, the Diary of Anne Frank or Anne Frank stands out. Ana was a Jewish girl who remained hidden in a hiding place with her family for two years, where she wrote about her experiences. Once they were found by the Nazis, Anne ended up being deported to Auschwitz and eventually died of typhoid fever in Bergen-Belsen .
The Diary of Anne Frank today is often taken as an instrument for education about the Holocaust and Nazism. There are also many films about the Holocaust that raise awareness about the atrocities of Nazism and its systematic violations of human rights.
Other uses of the notion
It should be noted that, beyond this historical fact, the concept of holocaust was used in the religious sphere to refer to the sacrifice of animals in large bonfires .
The holocaust was frequent in different pagan Greek and Roman rites, as well as in certain Jewish sacrifices.
It must also be emphasized that the word holocaust is used to refer to the total sacrifice of one's interests or affections, made by a specific person, motivated fundamentally by the love he or she feels towards another.