Holocaust Changed Over Time Essay

The word holocaust comes from the Greek words holos (whole) and kaustos (burned). Holocaust was originally defined as the destruction or slaughter on a mass scale caused by a fire or nuclear war. Now, the word holocaust refers to the killing of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II. I think the meaning of the word holocaust has changed over time because the media during World War II referred to the killings of Jews in Germany as a holocaust.
The Holocaust was a genocide in which six million were killed by Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler and his partners. Hitler thought Jews were an inferior race and a threat to German racial purity. Under Nazi rule, Jews were constantly being persecuted. During 1941, the Nazis began

transporting people they had little use for to concentration camps in Poland. The Nazis transported people who were Jews, elderly, weak, handicapped, or very young. From 1941 to 1945, Jews were being systematically murdered in genocide. The Nazis tried to keep the concentration camps secret but the scale of killings made it impossible. By 1944, approximately 12,000 Jews were being killed every day.
In the New York Times, the word holocaust was used as early as 1852.

It was used to mean sacrifice. An example would be in 1867 it was used to refer to the Africans that were sacrificed during European imperialism. The first usage of the word holocaust that referred to World War II appeared in 1940. The article was about how the Philadelphia Inquirer will print an editorial urging America to get involved in WWII even though the country is “against sending an army into Europe’s holocaust.”
During the 1940s, the media used the terms “the Hitler holocaust” and “the Nazi holocaust”. Only after when people were frequently talking about the killings were people using the term “the Holocaust”. Also, during the 1950s Elie Wiesel is credited for making the term ‘the Holocaust’ popular. Before the 1960s, the word holocaust was used but not in reference to World War II. The number of times holocaust was used to reference World War II increased from 3.4% in 1960 to 11.5% in 1961. This was due to the fact that the trial for Adolf Eichmann took place in 1961 and it was heavily covered by the press. The first mention of ‘the Holocaust’ in a dictionary occurred in the Webster’s New World Dictionary in 1981.
The meaning of the word holocaust has changed mainly because of the media and how our society uses the word

today.