Holocaust or holocausts?

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

In einer eMail vom 15.07.01 07:42:59 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit schreibt 
davidmmonroe at yahoo.com:

> 1 : a sacrifice consumed by fire
>  2 : a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of
>  life especially through fire <a nuclear holocaust>
>  3 a often capitalized : the mass slaughter of European
>  civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during
>  World War II -- usually used with the b : a mass
>  slaughter of people; especially : GENOCIDE
That's why the Jews themselves prefer the term "shoa". Shoa means only 
annihilation, nothing else; the word has no eschatological implications, like 
Holocaust, a word which gives the Endloesung a "last sense", perhaps in the 
direction of a kind of a "negative armaggeddon". Shoa is sharper and 
underlines the complete senselessness of the "events" in the concentration 
camps. The Holocaust can not only be "pluralized" (every massacre, every 
genocide, every extermination) but also "theologized". So in deed the 
"Holocaust" provokes debates like: who is a victim, and who not? F. e. the 
gypsies (Sinti and Roma, the word "gypsie" (Zigeuner) is not  longer "PC") in 
Germany still today have difficulties to be recognized as victims of the Nazi 
Holocaust: Nobody in the official politics denies that 250.000 Sinti and Roma 
were killed in the concentration camps; but what is denied is the fact that 
they were killed for the same reasons as the jews. Still today a lot of 
people (in Germany) say that the Sinti and Roma were killed as a consequence 
of their "antisocial behaviour" or their unableness to be integrated in the 
society. This example shows that - in the "framework" of the Holocaust - the 
question: who is victim, and who not? is still a field of ideological and 
political fights.
So: why not prefer the term "shoa" for avoiding misinterpretations and 
misunderstandings from the very beginning? 

Kurt-Werner Pörtner