The term “Holocaust” appeared for the first time in the mid-1940s. It originated from the Greek term holokauston, which describes a “completely burned sacrificial offering”. It referred to a religious sacrifice that involved completely burning the altar.

Historically, the word referred to any widespread destruction. The shift to indicate Nazi actions against Europe’s Jewish population during the Second World War started being widely popularised in the 1950s. But why did it take so long to start using an actual term instead of “the Destruction of the European Jews”, which appears rather technical?

After any historical event, the name for it is shaped by historians, writers and journalists long after the dust settles. They are established using metaphors and symbols. For example, the name “Holodomor” literally means “sea of hunger”. The Holodomor was the great famine in Ukraine in 1932–33, caused by the Soviets. It resulted in more than four million deaths throughout the country.

After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, in which close to a million people were killed in 100 days, teachers in the country were not allowed to discuss it with their pupils for ten years. It was added to the curriculum in Rwanda only in 2008. The reason behind this decision was to not trigger animosities surrounding fresh and delicate history that touched many students and their families.

Similarly, the Holocaust gradually started appearing as a subject in school, from the late 1970s to the 1990s. As was the case later in Rwanda, the Holocaust was not part of education for many reasons: the wounds were still fresh, survivors were still scared, and the world was more focused on moving forward than looking back into its often shameful past.

The word “Holocaust” (with a capital H) began being used without qualification to specifically mean the Nazi genocide during the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.

It was also popularised through books and TV. The 1978 TV series Holocaust, starring Meryl Streep, helped to bring the word to life. The famous 1985 documentary Shoah, directed by Claude Lanzmann, also played a crucial role in bringing attention to the Holocaust worldwide.

But “Holocaust” is not the only term. “Shoah” – meaning “destruction” or “ruin” – is the word used by Hebrew-speaking Jews. In Polish, “Zagłada” (“doom”) describes the annihilation of European Jews. But there are other words and phrases; some simply use “the massacre” or “the European catastrophe”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Harbingers’ Magazine (@hrb.mag)

It is also not the only word that came to existence in the wake of the Holocaust. In 1944, a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin realised that there was no legal term referring to the destruction of a specific ethnicity. This led to him to create the word “genocide”, which became the main legal and political term used in international affairs.

The full definition of genocide was established in 1948, when the United Nations agreed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It states that for a genocide to happen, three main aspects have to be present: killing or causing serious bodily/mental harm to members of a particular group; inflicting conditions of life meant to cause physical destruction; and preventing births or forcibly transferring children.

Today, the history of genocide, and especially the Holocaust, is a compulsory topic in most Western schools. Young people need to learn about the Holocaust and what led to it because those who set the school curricula hope that this will make them aware of the past and, most importantly, able to distinguish between good and evil.

Marian Turski, a Polish journalist, historian and Holocaust survivor, said: “Auschwitz did not fall from the sky”. In order for such events to not happen again, people need to discuss and explore what took place – and knowing the correct words and where they came from is the beginning of that journey.