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Holocaust And The Mass Murder Of The Jews

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Holocaust
“Holocaust” hails from two Greek words “holos” meaning whole and “kaustos” meaning burned. The Holocaust is a name that was used to historically define a sacrificial offering that was burned on an altar. However, from 1945, the word holocaust attained a new and horrible meaning. It was used to define the mass murder of 6 million European Jews. The Jews were killed along with some other persecuted groups such as homosexuals and gypsies. Now, the term Holocaust is used to define the mass murder of the Jews and this paper will explore the occurrences surrounding the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler did not mark the beginning of Anti-Semitism in Europe. Regardless of the fact that the term itself came into use in the 1870s, evidence pertaining to hostility toward Jews dates back to as far as the ancient world (Crowe 45). This was when the Roman authorities obliterated the Jewish temple that was situated in Jerusalem (Crowe 45). Subsequently, they forced the Jews to leave Palestine. In addition to this, the Enlightenment during the 17th and 18th centuries accentuated religious intolerance (Crowe 47). In the 19th century, Napoleon along with other European rulers established legislations that marked the end of the long-standing restrictions on Jews (Crowe 52). The Anti-Semitic feeling in most of the situations took a racial form rather than a religious one. Conversely, the Hitler’s specific slanderous brand regarding Anti-Semitism is not precisely known.
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