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Cake day: July 15th, 2023

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  • When anyone talks about Holocaust these days, it’s reasonable to assume they talk about the one vs the Jews by Nazi Germany. It has gained a special meaning unlike the more generic word genocide, which is perfectly fine for other use cases. The Holocaust was a genocide, not every genocide is a Holocaust.

    If you want to go semantic/etymological, calling the current Palestine genocide a Holocaust still makes no sense, as the old Greek holocaust literally means “full incineration”, burning sth so nothing is left. Which makes sense in association with Nazi crematoriums, and its historic use for large fire catastrophes such as whole cities burning down.

    It also made - semantically - sense for Neonazis in Germany who called the fire-bombings of German cities by the Allied in WW2 holocausts as well. This also tries to form a link and somehow equate two entirely different things. Both atrocities by modern standards, sure, but at vastly different levels.

    (Mis-)appropriating terms to undermine and diffuse their meaning is a simple and effective populist tactic, which is why it’s popular with extremists.

    Call a genocide a genocide, call the Holocaust the Holocaust.

    The world is full of nuance, not just radicals and extremes.