Why Is the Shoah Called ‘the Shoah’ or ‘the Holocaust’? On the History of the Terminology for the Nazi Anti-Jewish Campaign

Abstract

ABSTRACT In current public discourse as well as in scholarly research, two terms are used for the Nazi anti-Jewish campaign (1933–1945): ‘The Shoah’ in Hebrew and ‘the Holocaust’ in most of the other languages. These two terms are not the terms that the persecuted and the survivors themselves used during the period itself and in the first post-1945 years. Why than are the leading terms that we use today not the terms of the survivors? Moreover: when did these terms, that were not coined specifically to indicate this event but are words that originate in the vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew and ancient Greek, become the dominant ones, and what were the circumstances and developments that caused them to be embraced and entrenched? Additionally, what does it mean that these terms do not really explain what happened in the historical event (and are understood only if one has earlier knowledge about it), while the only new term that was specifically coined for this event – Judeocide – has actually been pushed aside? These questions are analyzed in this article from the perspectives of the history of terminology and of the analysis of intellectual and popular discourse which is influenced by fundamental events, migration, the media, and political interventions. Analysis from these perspectives shows that philosophical discussions and debates, some of them stormy, on these terms and the legitimacy of using them, which can be found in scholarly literature in various disciplines and in opinion journalism, entirely miss(ed) the actual development, and are therefore of no real importance.