As Mbz1 showed, the article on the Holocaust in Poland gives that exact wording. The Nazis wiped out Jewish life in Poland, which before the Holocaust was thriving. Jews represented a VERY significant proportion of the population in Poland. After the Holocaust, there were nearly none left. Today, there are still nearly none left. I would say this is the destruction of an entire civilization. The fact that Jews elsewhere were able to spit in the face of Hitler, "regroup", and build one of the most advanced and vibrant democracy in the world in Israel, does not change the fact that Polish Jewry was destroyed.