from my english teacher, this is some notes she gave us / Ms. Freedman's definition of The Holocaust:
"The Holocaust usually refers to a specific event in 20th centure history: the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European
Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
Victims: Jews, Gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet
POW's, and political dissidents
Why? Not simply the logical and inevitable consequence of unbridled
rascism. Rather, rascism, combinded with centuries-old bigotry, renewed by a nationalistic fervor which emerged in Europe in the later half of the 19th centure, fueled by Germany's defeat in WWI and its national humiliation following the Treaty of Versailles, exacerbated by worldwide economic hard times, the ineffectiveness of the
Weimar Republic, and international indifference, and
catalyzed by the political charisma, militaristic inclusiveness, and manipulative propaganda of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, contributed to the eventuality of the Holocaust."