tanya

UK?
Netherlands?
France?
Italy?
Spain?
Scandinavia/Iceland?
The whole of Eastern Europe, including Greece?

Holo = TOTAL
Caust = Destruction

On your next visit to Hispaniola, please look around you, and answer this question: Do you see many Taina "indians"? No? Really? I wonder why? Oh, you mean they had been ANHILIATED. Totally erased from the face of the earth.

That's a holocaust. The destruction of the North American Indian tribes, no language, no culture, no artifacts, no religion, no people, that's a holocaust. What happened to the jews in Europe, in the 1930's and 1940's was a crime against humanity, and an unforgivable atrocity. It was not even close to a holocaust, however. There are functioning synagogues even today, in Germany. Good luck finding a Taina temple anywhere, on the planet earth.

Insistence upon historical accuracy does not confer the quality of "right-wing shithead".

Vorkosigan

remove this

Davka

Etymology is not the same as definition.

hol·o·caust

noun
1. a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire.
2. a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
3. ( usually initial capital letter ) the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (usually preceded by the ).
4. any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.

Note that the primary definition is "a great OR complete . . . " not merely "complete." The word is being used accurately with reference to the near-total destruction of East European Jewry and Jewish communities in WWII.

tanya

You are correct Dr.Jim, and I apologize for taking Vorkosigan's bait.

Now that Davka has come to the aid of Vork, I will try to be brief, to avoid wasting bandwidth on yet another off topic message.

1. Biblical studies focus on DETAILS, precision, and rigorous scrutiny of the exact meaning of words, especially, for those interested, as I am, in the history of the genesis of Christianity, details about GREEK words. We have an endless quantity of threads with countless posts focused on analysis of the most incredibly banal and trivial detail about the exact meaning of this or that particular Greek word.

I recently read an old thread from about a year ago, wherein forum members devoted a couple of weeks to analysis of a single three letter Greek word, dia.

Holocaust is an English word, derived from the Greek. As such it is appropriate, ON THIS FORUM, to insist upon an accurate definition of the word. Your definition, Davka, is nonsense, because you seek to dilute the meaning to conform to social preconceptions. The jews insist on using the word holocaust to describe the plight of their relatives, murdered under Hitler, (and later, Stalin!!) when the more accurate description is "slaughter". In the 1920's, 30's and 40's, most of the Jews of Europe had been massacred, and whole families destroyed, however, the culture and some of the people, survived. It was a terrible, indefensible, senseless destruction of precious lives, but it was NOT a holocaust.

2. Holocaust doesn't mean, in our context, biblical studies, (i.e. religious inspired warfare, and wholesale massacres of entire nations,) a partial conflagration. It means COMPLETE, AND TOTAL DESTRUCTION.

Hitler's Germany raped, tortured, and massacred MILLIONS of innocent people, some of them jews, some communists, some gypsies, some people with handicaps (mental retardation, for example,) and some, ordinary folks who happened to disagree with fascism.

There is no doubt in my mind, at least, that the third Reich sought to eliminate all Jews. However, for a variety of reasons, THEY FAILED. I personally, am pleased, that they did not succeed. The Jews of Eastern Europe were NOT annihilated. The same cannot be said for the Taina "indians", of North America.

How about this: Here are the names of eight states:
Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
What do you imagine these 8 states have in common?

hint: answer is "HOLOCAUST".

Toto

tanya aka avi:

You can quibble over the meaning of Holocaust, but "Holocaust denial" has a specific meaning - the denial of the clear facts of the Nazi's attempts to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.