The Illuminations

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Holocaust

Beyond Genocide #10, completed 2009.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Holocaust was the “systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The term “Shoah” is a Hebrew word which means “catastrophe” and it is now more commonly used in modern literature to describe the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. Although Jews were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included the Roma, mentally or physically disabled patients and millions of others including Communists, religious dissidents, political opponents and homosexuals. Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the total number of victims is estimated to be nine to twelve million.