Khurbn

The Hebrew word khurbn (Hebrew: חורבן) means a "cataclysmic, utter destruction",^[1] and is widely used in Yiddish to describe several major catastrophes of the Jewish people, starting with the destruction of the first and the second temples,^[2] pogroms in Russia during the First World War, and the Holocaust.^[3]

Writer and social activist S. An-sky's, who was a relief worker during the First World War, wrote a book titled Khurbn Galitsiye (Hebrew: חורבן גאליציע, The Destruction of Galicia).^[1][4]

After World War II, the word khurbn is often used as a synonym to the Holocaust,^[5][6] (also khurbn eyrope (חורבן אײראָפּע)), and is sometimes used in the titles of memorial books (yizkor books) about the destroyed shtetls, like Khurbn Proskurov,^[7] Rakhel Feygenberg's A pinkes fun a toyter shtot (khurbn dubove) (Chronicle of a Dead City: The Destruction of Dubove),^[3] Max Kaufmann's early (1947) history of the genocide in Latvia, Khurbn Letland,^[8] or Yehoshue Perle's Khurbn Varshe.^[9][10] Raul Hilberg's most important work was titled The Destruction of the European Jews.^[11]

The Holocaust studies are sometimes called khurbn-forshung (lit. "destruction research").^[12][13]

"Khurbn Yiddish" refers to the sociolect shaped by Yiddish speakers' experience during the Holocaust, who developed new words and slang, particularly relating to theft, protest, and sexuality.^[14][15][16] It is also called khurbn-shprakh. Historian Nachman Blumental described it:^[17]

When I found myself within the borders of Eastern Poland in mid-1944, meeting the few Jews that I found there, I was almost unable to understand their language (loshn). So many modifications had occurred in the short period of my absence—in those roughly three years.