What might have really brought “The Holocaust” into the popular lexicon was the novel (1970) and later TV movie “QB VII,” (1974) which was a pretty big event. The title of the novel in the novel was “The Holocaust.”
In Germany, it was the later TV series “Holocaust” which brought the word on the map. I was 10 or 11 when it aired here and had never heard the word before. I knew about the holocaust, but we didn’t have a word for it, rather than “Vernichtung der Juden im 2. Weltkrieg” (Annihilation of the Jews in WWII). A few years later, I also learned the word “shoah”.
That’s a terrifyingly direct way to call it, I wonder at the lack of euphemism.
The mass killing of left wing people in Argentina was/is known as “El proceso” (The process, for “Process of National Reorganization”) or “Guerra Sucia” (Dirty War), or “The crimes of the dictatorship” and even the victims are still known as “The disappeared” when we know damn well by now what happened to them (killed in situ and buried in clandestine mass graves or drugged and dropped in the Rio de la Plata from planes)
Well, Germans usually don’t care much for euphemisms and express themselves bluntly, that’s what we do. Often leads to embarrassing exchanges with people of other cultures.
It’s (culturally) shocking but I think we could do with more of that bluntness here, if perhaps not to that extent.
Georgie Woods who coined the phrase was a black DJ at an R&B station with a largely black audience. It was in that sweet spot in the History of popular music when race based genres started to become meaningless. That lasted for less than a decade.
The Nazis liked euphemisms like “Final Solution”.
Yeah, those fuckers had all kinds of euphemisms for the crimes they did, to cover them up. And they were cynical about it, see “Arbeit macht frei”.
I guess some things are so monstrous, specially when you are the one proposing it, that you are practically forced to use euphemisms.
As history as recorded it, but others say that a better translation would have been “Total Solution,” which does describe the Wannsee document pretty well as it goes into great detail.
Not really. Though “total solution” may describe the consequences of the Wannsee conference best, “final solution” is the 100% literal translation of “Endlösung”.
Can’t argue with an expert/native speaker on the language, but that’s the way Goering said.
If any time that white people began singing and playing in a style already used by black people for their music, then the term “rock and roll” would be equally racist:
I watched the video, but I found it confusing and didn’t spot the crucial detail of Goering correcting the translation of Endlösung as “final solution” to “total solution”. I could follow quite well until the off speaker spoke English over Goering’s statements so that I couldn’t follow the original German anymore. I only noticed that the American prosecutor some time at the beginning uses the expression “complete solution”, but nowhere in the video spotted the words “Endlösung”, “final solution” or “Totallösung”. I also don’t know how good Goering’s English was.
Anyway, even if he did insist that the translation “final solution” was wrong, it’s not the term the nazis themselves used. I’v never heard the term “Totallösung” or “total solution” before.
The translated phase in Goering’s letter was “desired solution” so the prosecutor probably did misquote him. But all that means is that Goering was using a different phrase than the one used by the SS and other Nazis on one specific occasion.
There’s also the term “complete solution” in that document, which the prosecutor also used when addressing Goering. We don’t know what terms Goering used in the original German document, but I suspect they were “totale Lösung” (complete solution) and “erwünschte Lösung” (desired solution).
But as you said, the point is moot because Goering just used other terms than the SS and most other nazis. My statement that “final solution” is the direct, correct translation of “Endlösung” stands.
Seconded. We can argue about whether the two words should be capitalized, as it refers to a unique event in history: the Final Solution. But the semantics are spot on, the rest is nitpick.
I think I’ve posted this here before.
True story. I was at Zion NP and had just hiked up to Angel’s Landing. An extremely difficult hike. Back on terra firma I passed an elderly German tourist asking a (female) ranger about the trail difficulty, even though it was clearly posted. She replied, “strenuous”. He thought for a moment and responded, “I meant for a male”. She paused, and then repeated that it was rated as strenuous. He looked at her in apparent frustration and asked in complete earnestness, “for a GERMAN male?"
Well, that was not necessarily the bluntness, that guy was just an asshole.
For an example of the German bluntness I meant: if you ask a German “How do you do?”, don’t expect a phrase like “Thanks, I’m fine”, but rather “Oh please don’t ask. I’ve had a cold for six days, our cat died lately and the car broke down and is at the garage. I’m miserable. What about you?” That kind of bluntness.
Ha ha, OK, point taken but had I been asking something like that, I think I would have softened it up a bit. And not been so “socially tone-deaf” about it all.
ETA: After he left I asked her she was able to remain so composed during that exchange. She shrugged and said, “I see all kinds”. Had it been me, I would have been sorely tempted to say, “Oh a GERMAN male, then it will be child’s play for you - have a good hike”