What Is The Holocaust?
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. -United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
Origins of the Term "Holocaust"
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "the word Holocaust is derived from the Greek holokauston, a translation of the Hebrew word ʿolah, meaning a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God. This word was chosen, and gained wide usage, because, in the ultimate manifestation of the Nazi killing program—the extermination camps—the bodies of the victims were consumed whole in crematoria or open fires.
In the years immediately after World War II, Yiddish-speaking Jews and survivors of Nazi persecution called the murder of the Jews the Ḥurban (“Destruction”), the same word used to denote the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE."
Jews in France and Israel often call the Holocaust the Shoah, meaning "catastrophe" in Hebrew, to avoid the religious connotations of "Holocaust" and emphasis the Jewish nature of the event.
In the years immediately after World War II, Yiddish-speaking Jews and survivors of Nazi persecution called the murder of the Jews the Ḥurban (“Destruction”), the same word used to denote the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE."
Jews in France and Israel often call the Holocaust the Shoah, meaning "catastrophe" in Hebrew, to avoid the religious connotations of "Holocaust" and emphasis the Jewish nature of the event.
Why teach the Holocaust?
We teach the Holocaust so that students understand that democratic institutions and freedoms are not something to be taken for granted. They can be easily lost, sometimes in the course of a single generation, if they are not carefully safeguarded. The Holocaust also reveals to us the extremes of the human condition: of fear, hatred, ignorance, pain, suffering, but also compassion. It shows us how ordinary people much like ourselves became victims and murderous oppressors in their historical circumstances--and not by accident. It was the result of deliberate choices and actions made by many individuals; and therefore it teaches us how to avoid such choices and actions in our own time.
Objectives
Students should be able to explain why and how the Holocaust occurred and tie it back to the World History course question, "How does the past affect our world in the present day?"
Content Standard
CA-HSSCS 10.8.5. Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of six million Jewish civilians