Why is the Holocaust not considered a genocide?

Answer 1

The Holocaust was genocide.

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The Holocaust can technically be considered an attempted genocide.

During the Holocaust the attempted extermination of various Gyspy tribes was an attempted genocide as some suffered 95% losses.

But it is not considered a genocide because no Jewish group was in danger of being completely exterminated, all Jewish groups had representatives in countries not under the Nazi influence and none came nearly as close to extinction as the gypsies.

Currently you will generally see them listed together: "Holocaust and Genocide", so as to eliminate the ambiguety of whether the Holocaust is considered a genocide.

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The meaning of a word is its current use, not its etymology. That applies in particular to artificially created terms, which are invented because there is a need for them. The Holocaust of the Jews is considered the classic example of genocide. It was invented in 1943 by the Polish Jewish lawyer Rafael Lemkin for the crime being committed against the Jews at the time.

"[T]he deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group". (Wikipedia article on Genocide). The suggestion that genocide only occurs if every single member of the taregeted group is killed is pedantic posturing.

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The Holocaust IS genocide!

The word 'Genocide" was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II, to describe the premeditated effort the Nazis put forth to try and kill all the Jewish. (Webster's Dictionary)

So, the whole reason the word was created was to be used to describe the Holocaust.