Who invented the idea of the holocaust?

Answer 1

The first recorded use of the word holocaust in the sense of genocide dates from 1942 but it was rarely used. It is said that Elie Wiesel popularized the word in its modern sense in the late 1950s. However, it didn't become widely used till the late 1970s following the first broadcast of the TV miniseries entitled Holocaust.

Answer 2

When written with a lower-case "h," the word "Holocaust" refers to devastation and destruction that are immense and total, especially due to fire. The word comes from Greek "holokaustos" where "holo-" means "whole" and "kaustos" means "burnt."

When capitalized, the word "Holocaust" refers to the persecution and murder of six million people (overwhelmingly Jewish but also including other groups such as Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehova's Witnesses, communists, Slavs, and other people) perpetrated by the Nazi Dictatorship in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. The term "Holocaust" was used originally because of the use of gas chambers and ovens to burn the murdered victims' bodies.

In modern English, the term "holocaust" can now also refer generally to any mass slaughter of human beings, but the word's main modern connotation is of the Holocaust in Europe.
-------------------------------------------------------
Holocaust means :- great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.

This is what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany, they were killed in great numbers (millions) and their bodies were burnt and the scale of this event has meant that the word's use is now extended to mean this genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II.

Answer 3

The idea of the word? Or of the concept?

Many 'credit' Heydrich with inventing the idea. Others say it was a concept created a long time before he had the idea.