Khurbn
The Hebrew word khurbn means a "cataclysmic, utter destruction", 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, pogroms in Russia during the First World War, and the Holocaust.
Writer and social activist S. An-sky's, who was a relief worker during the First World War, wrote a book titled Jewish Ethnographic Expedition#Ethnography and [relief work during the war|Khurbn Galitsiye].
After World War II, the word khurbn is often used as a synonym to the Holocaust,, and is sometimes used in the titles of memorial books about the destroyed shtetls, like Khurbn Proskurov, Rakhel Feygenberg's A pinkes fun a toyter shtot , Max Kaufmann's early history of the genocide in Latvia, Khurbn Letland, or Yehoshue Perle's Khurbn Varshe. Raul Hilberg's most important work was titled The Destruction of the European Jews.
The Holocaust studies are sometimes called khurbn-forshung.
"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. It is also called khurbn-shprakh. Historian Nachman Blumental described it: