Winston Churchill described the mass murder of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its allies as “a crime without a name.” The perpetrators, the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany called it Die Endlösung der Judenfrage (the Final Solution of the Jewish Question). The number of Jewish victims is generally regarded to be between 5.8 and 6 million. Later, this extermination policy became known as the Holocaust, or “Shoah” in Hebrew. In a more generic and legalistic formula, the Holocaust was an example of genocide, a word invented by Raphael Lemkin in 1943. The word holocaust is derived from the Greek holokaustos, meaning a “burnt offering,” as used in a religious sacrifice.

"Holocaust." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by John Hartwell Moore, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2008, pp. 103-112. Gale Virtual Reference Library, chabotcollege.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=ccl_ebook&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX2831200202&asid=a8044df8a869320319b5d6ea686ee132. Accessed 20 Nov. 2017.

The term genocide was coined in the 1940s to describe the policies of human extermination carried out by the Nazi Party during World War II (1939–1945). According to the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the term refers to any attempt to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group via murder, bodily or mental harm, exposure to conditions likely to cause death, birth prevention, or forced transfer of children to a different group of people.

Eichenwald, Adam. "Genocide." Immigration and Migration: In Context, edited by Thomas Riggs and Kathleen J. Edgar, vol. 1, Gale, 2018, pp. 323-329. In Context Series. Gale Virtual Reference Library, chabotcollege.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=ccl_ebook&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3662200071&asid=bdc02f1cd08c6c121a902fa5763bb70f. Accessed 20 Nov. 2017.