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Holocaust can mean:

• Holocaust (sacrifice), a burnt offering, from Greek holo-kauston "all burnt". The original sense, referring to a completely-burnt sacrifice
• The Holocaust, or Shoah, the systematic killing mainly of six million Jews, but also of Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals and other "undesirable" groups in Europe during World War II. Since 1978, this has been the main meaning of the English term.
• By extension the word was used in English to refer to other acts of obliteration by burning (or massacres in general). See:
  • category:fires
  • nuclear holocaust
  • category:massacres

See also Names of the Holocaust for a discussion of the history and usage of the word.

Other genocides

Post-1970s coinings of the type "name Holocaust" in the sense of "genocide" or "mass murder" imply a comparison to the German holocaust and are often used polemically.

• See genocides in history; many instances may be called "X genocide" or "X holocaust" equivalently
• See category:racial massacres for specific incidents
• Articles specifically discussing the political background of the usage:
  • African holocaust, Pan-Africanist term for the suffering of African peoples through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasions, oppression, and exploitation.
  • American Holocaust, a term used by David Stannard in his book of that name to label the alleged genocide of Native Americans by the United States.
  • Armenian Holocaust, used to describe the Armenian genocide prior to coinage of the term "genocide".
  • Asian Holocaust, in Asia and the Pacific islands under the Japanese Empire.
  • Black Holocaust, the death of Africans on slave ships.
  • Ukrainian Holocaust, the Holodomor (mass famine) during Soviet collectivisation.
  • Rwandan genocide

See also

• Forgotten Holocaust -- several meanings
• Silent Holocaust -- several meanings

• Disambiguation pages