ABSTRACT
Holocaust The Holocaust, as a historical event, refers to the systematic extermination of approximately six million European Jews and at least 250,000 Sinti and Roma Gypsies by the National Socialist state during World War II and to the annihilation of Eastern European Jewish life. Derived from the Greek word holokauston, which refers to a sacrifice by fire, this connotation came into use in the late 1950s. Previously, it had meant, in English, any great destruction or a mass slaughter of human beings.
