Naming Catastrophe: Holocaust, Shoah or Churban (Destruction)

The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler carried out the extermination of nearly six million Jews, primarily between the years 1939-1945. How is the horrible tragedy referred to? Over the years various names and terms have been proposed, promoted, used in historiography and public discourse. By the mid 1950’s The Holocaust came to dominate in the English speaking world, while Shoah or The Shoah was already widespread even earlier in Hebrew. In academic circles the Nazi term Final Solution was often used, or alternatively Genocide, or Judeocide was sometimes used in the early years, before Holocaust or Shoah gained more widespread acceptance. Another term to refer to the Nazi murder of European Jewry was Destruction, or the Hebrew term Churban, sometimes elongated to Churban Europa. This more traditional term – which evoked imagery of the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash – was preferred in many religious circles.

What were the origins of these various term, and how did they develop in the trajectory which they did? Does it matter which term is utilized in describing this tragic chapter in Jewish history? Does the choice of name express an ideology or choose a direction of the narrative?

 

Link for Yehuda Geberer lectures on the Holocaust at Yeshiva Shappell’s Darche Noam:

https://open.spotify.com/show/6PGiaiQFk10ybR9dS5wWTp
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shapells-virtual-beit-midrash/id1516601751
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc0NeHrGWsCtlV_uVplhJa9mT2ecM0sLt

 

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