HIST250 UDel Exam 1

Kulaks

Invented category of "wealthy peasant"

"Dekulakization"

The effort to eradicate this class of people

Gulag:

Network of prisons and work camps throughout the Soviet union where criminals and political prisoners were sent.

Holodomor, 1932-1933

death by hunger

the great terror

Immediate pretext: assassination of Leningrad Communist Party Chief, Sergi Kirov. Purges (Russian, chistki): "enemies of the people." Ordinary people denounced for statements interpreted as hostile to the state; arrested, executed or sent to labor camps. Campaign to root out "counter-revolutionaries," "saboteurs," "spies," "foreign agents," "conspirators."

antisemitism

In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr invented a new term for Jews and those who hate them.

"We are no longer a match for this foreign tribe...Our outlook is none other than a time when we Germans will live as slaves under...Judaism and this Semitic people which put its heel onto the nape of our necks."

the "gray zone"

There are gray, ambiguous persons, ready to compromise"

Ordinary men

mass atrocities do not require literal monsters. Instead, average people under specific societal pressures, group dynamics, and institutional authority are capable of committing horrific genocidal acts

Browning

who coined the term of ordinary men

Lemkin

creator of the terms political and cultural genocide

Primo Levi

Who coined the term "gray zone"

Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944)

Book by Raphael Lemkin that analyzed the laws and governance of Nazi-occupied territories. First definition of “genocide”

United Nations Genocide Convention (1948)

an international treaty that makes genocide a crime under international law and requires member states to prevent and punish it

Actus Reus

means the "guilty act". It is the physical action, omission, or unlawful conduct that breaks the law

Mens Rea

means the "guilty mind". It is the mental state or criminal intent behind the act

Protected Groups

National, ethnic, racial and religious groups.

Colonialism

when a powerful country exerts political, economic, and cultural control over another territory and its native population, typically to exploit its resources

Imperialism

the state extending power, authority, and dominion over other territories, nations, or peoples, typically through direct territorial acquisition, military force, or political and economic control

Scramble for Africa

the rapid invasion, occupation, and colonization of the African continent by seven Western European powers between the late 19th century and the start of World War I

Herrero and Nama people

The Herero (Ovaherero) and Nama (Namaqua) are indigenous ethnic groups in Namibia. Between 1904 and 1908, the German Empire carried out a campaign of ethnic extermination to both groups

“Final Solution”

Nazi Germany's plan to completely murder all Jewish people in Europe during World War II

Ottoman Empire (1453-1918)

a transcontinental superpower

Anatolia

ethnic cleansing carried out against the indigenous Christian populations of Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire and Turkish nationalists

Millet system

an administrative framework in the Ottoman Empire where non-Muslim religious minorities were granted autonomy to govern their own internal affairs

The “Armenian” question

the historical debate regarding treatment, protection and political freedoms of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

Hamidian Massacres (1894-96)

Armenian massacres, Ottoman attacks on Armenian and Christian populations

Balkan Wars (1912-13)

two successive conflicts fought in 1912 and 1913 that stripped the Ottoman Empire of nearly all its remaining territory in Europe and set the stage for World War I

Young Turks

a progressive, rebellious, or radical member of an organization, political party, or group who aggressively pushes for change and challenges the established authority

April 24, 1915

Ottoman authorities arrested hundreds of Armenian leaders and intellectuals in Constantinople. Marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

Der Ez Zor

the desert region and final destination in the Syrian Desert where hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees were marched, starved, worked to death, or systematically massacred

Van (siege of, 1915)

an armed resistance by the Armenian population of the Van Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire

Bolsheviks

A radical, Marxist revolutionary faction in Russia led by Vladimir Lenin

Socialism

an economic and political system where the major means of production (factories, land, machinery) are owned or controlled collectively by the public or the state rather than by private individuals

Collectivization

an economic policy where private land and livestock were forcibly combined into large, state-run farms

Purges

the removal, imprisonment, exile, or execution of people considered undesirable or disloyal by those in power within a government, party, organization, or society

NKVD

the public and secret law enforcement agency of the Soviet Union that conducted political repression, mass surveillance, and forced labor under Joseph Stalin

National Socialism

far-right, ultranationalist, racist, and totalitarian political ideology associated with Adolf Hitler

Drive to the East

German nationalist concept meaning "Drive to the East" or "push eastward," referring to territorial expansion into Slavic lands in Central and Eastern Europe

Nuremburg Laws

antisemitic and racist laws introduced in Nazi Germany on September 15, 1935

Lebensraum (living space)

a historical policy of territorial expansion that was most notoriously used by Nazi Germany to justify displacement and genocide during World War II

The November pogrom (1938)

a violent, state-sponsored wave of anti-Jewish riots that took place across Nazi Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland

General Government

a German zone of occupation established by Nazi Germany in central and southern Poland during World War II

Ghetto

Enclosed or restricted city areas where Nazis forced Jews to live

Hitler’s community

Membership in this community was strictly limited to individuals of "Aryan" blood

Survival in Auschwitz (If This Is a Man)

autobiographical memoir by Primo Levi that documents the lived reality of the Holocaust from arrival to daily survival and the human social structures. written in a detached and objective tone