Introduction

Holocaust: Derived from the Greek word "Holokauston" which originally meant a sacrifice totally burned by fire. Hebrew word "shoah" meaning catastrophe or destruction, also denotes the attempts to annihilate Jews.

Genocide: Derived from Greek words "genos" and "caedes" meaning "race" "killing".

The Holocaust is known as the darkest period of world history. Over 6,000,000 people were killed during this time. That number does not include those who were lucky enough to escape or those who were constantly persecuted by Hitler and his men. This terror lasted for over 12 years. This site contains just a small fraction of all the information that exists. I recommend reading books like "Night" by Elie Wiesel, "Number the Stars", and "The Diary of Anne Frank." There are many movies to watch as well, "Shindler's List" just being one of them.

The Holocaust had many different effects on people. The obvious are anger, sadness, death, but many forget about faith. Many of the prisoners lost faith during this time. Elie Wiesel and many others could not understand why God would allow this to happen. Many people believe that this time period put an end to conventional theology. However, many others strengthened their faith because they believed that if they never gave up hope they would survive. Many of those who struggled to survive, were often some of the first ones to die in the gas chambers.

There were not very many survivors. Upon entering camp, the prisoners were trapped and could not escape except through death. At Auschwitz, there were 600 cases of escape. Out of these 600, 400 were captured and immediately tortured and put to death. Those who did survive the camps, were those who were lucky enough to have arrived towards the end of the war when the camps were being liberated.

*Please note the bibliography, as most of my information derived from these sites and books.