As you say, there's enough horror to go around.

Jerry Rothenberg among others prefers the yiddish word korbn, which means 
slaughter, as in the slaughtering iof animals. It has the virtue of lacking 
any kind of sentimentality. But it only communicates within a limited 
circle, so holocaust it probably will remain, to the extent that the other 
connotations of holocaust, as ritual, have largely disappeared.

You might keep in mind that while some Jews are in fact only vaguely aware 
that other groups were systematically slaughtered the use of any of the 
available terms by most Jews isn't meant either politically or 
exclusively--it's meant to refer to our own loss, helpless grief and 
outrage, which is surely legitimate.

As to flinches, try telling a typically self-denigrating Jewish joke to a 
Jewish friend. If you don't flinch your friend certainly will--as with all 
such humor you have to be a part of the group to tell it. I think something 
similar applies here.

You understand that things like the holocaust tend to make members of the 
target population edgy.

Mark


At 09:20 AM 8/8/2005, you wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Monday, August 08, 2005 1:26 PM
>Subject: Re: Not exactly Hiroshima but about unhealed wounds
>
>I think I'm in a broad agreement with much of this, Dominic, though I have
>learned from it too. Coming at it from my perspective rather than yours,
>there are aspects to your response which are helpful to me.
>
>I had never, for instance, thought of the flinch in using a word that
>doesn't belong to me. I'd had a different take perhaps partly because I have
>or had a moderate amount of Yiddish in my vocabulary and have been taken for
>Jewish though I'm not to my knowledge. Maybe I am just insensitive to
>flinches
>
>Of course, language doesn't belong to anyone, yet... where there is a
>perfectly good word in one's own language, it's a little odd to use somebody
>else's. It may be to show off, it may be to show sympathy...
>
>I tend to interpret use of _Shoah_ by those I dont know to be Jews as
>sympathy for a number of things Israeli I do not have sympathy with. And
>that was my general point about the ousting of the Palestinians and their
>word for it
>
>It is true that "death camps" doesn't *directly indicate a systematic
>project of extermination based on a theory of
>racial and eugenic purity. But that would always be a long word. Apply it,
>structurally, to something less revolting and it might sound funny, like one
>of the supposed ten million words for snow in the arctic
>
>My understanding of the word Shoah in terms of its usage is that it refers
>specifically to Jews; but as you say the Jews were one category among many
>even though they were the principal target.
>
>I think "death camp" is a pretty strong term. It doesn't offer much scope
>for the view of death as part of life. It emphasises destruction and loss.
>
>Emphasis on what happened to Jews in Europe, rather than what happened to a
>lot of people in Europe, has been directly and indrectly used to justify or
>discourage criticism of the racist behaviour of those who set up and
>maintain Israel; and I would want to emphasise that not so much directly but
>by bringing back into the discussion  the gays, the Roma and other
>supposedly inferior races and, as you say, anyone else the exterminators
>took a disliing to.
>
>As you say _it is the technological organisation of killing that
>is noteworthy, not the identity of the victims (or the perpetrators)_
>
>I think though it is industrial scale and automation you refer to (?) rather
>than technology as such, because most killing is technological to some
>extent
>
>death camps, as a term, brings that out well. by its brevity and by the use
>of a word for which many search desperately for a euphemism
>
>What do you do? Oh I am in death
>
> >By convention, and because it is the name given to the thing the
>deniers deny, I normally say "holocaust", in spite of the wrongness of
>the term in several regards.
>
>We just don't have a word for it. There's too much of it. There are those
>among us did this? the film of Bronowski picking at the bone dust of
>Auschwitz comes into my mind
>
>cruise missiles might sound almost nice with the connotations of cruise. but
>Mass kill anywhere nice? doesnt
>
>And in the future leaders to come will be able to justify the use of WMDs
>not atom bombs or germ bombs. Acronyms may sanitise
>
>war reality can always be explained away, they think - _war is war_ is the
>cheekiest. it would be much clearer if Bush declared death on Iraq
>
>or if we had civil death arrangements declared after the various african
>govts received their arms
>
>if there is no word, perhaps because there can't be, then I guess it's up
>for grabs
>
>i would wish though that it were not particularised.
>
>yes people deny _the holocaust_; but the other side, perhaps more
>widespread, is that in particularising those events, they can be left as
>part of _then_, hiding the nonsense side of _never again_, as if it ever
>stopped - people sent across borders they didnt want to cross as part of the
>cease fire and, as I said, within a year napalm dropped on Greeks
>
>what Hitler started, if it started then, has never ended - the
>mass-destruction organisation of killing is big business today; and I'd like
>to have a term that includes all the technological mass killing
>
>and that a lot more strongly than i am interested in nailing the word games
>from Israel, they're just part of the next generation carrying on the work
>
>
>L