Night terms

1. Adolf Hitler

the leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany (1933–45). His worldview revolved around two concepts territorial expansion and racial supremacy.

2. Anti-Semitism

hostility toward or hatred of Jews as a religious or ethnic group, often accompanied by social, economic, or political discrimination.

3. Appellplatz

German word for roll call square where prisoners were forced to assemble.

4. Auschwitz

the largest Nazi concentration camp complex, located in Krakow, Poland.

5. Birkenau

Nazi camp also known as Auschwitz II which contained systematic masskilling operations. It also housed thousands of concentration camp prisoners deployed at

forced labor.

6. Buchenwald

a large concentration camp established in 1937 by the Nazis.

7. Buna

Industrial plant established by the I.G. Farben company on the site of Auschwitz III in German-occupied Poland.

8. I.G. Farben

a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. aimed to produce synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel (gasoline), using forced labor. Thousands of prisoners died there.

9. Concentration camp

Camps to detain and, if necessary, kill so-called enemies of the state, including Jews, Gypsies, political and religious opponents, members of national resistance movements, homosexuals, and others.

10. Crematorium

a facility containing a furnace for reducing dead bodies to ashes by burning.

11. Gypsy

a traditional term, sometimes perceived as pejorative, for Roma, a nomadic people whose ancestors migrated to Europe from India. Nazi Germany and its Axis partners persecuted and killed large numbers of Roma during the era of the Holocaust.

12. Kripo (Criminal Police)

German police detective force responsible for investigating non-political crimes.

13. Euthanasia

"euthanasia" (literally, "good death") usually refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual.

14. Fascism

a political movement that exalts the collective nation, and often race, above the individual and that advocates for a centralized totalitarian state.

15. “Final Solution”

the Nazi plan to annihilate the European Jews.

16. Gestapo

the German Secret State Police, which was under SS control. It was responsible for investigating political crimes and opposition activities.

17. Ghetto

a confined area of a city in which members of a minority group are compelled to live.

18. Holocaust

the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims.

19. Kapo

a concentration camp prisoner selected to oversee other prisoners on labor details.

20. Killing centers

The Nazis established killing centers for efficient mass murder.

21. Kommando

German word for detachment, such as a detachment of concentration camp prisoners at forced labor.

22. Kristallnacht

usually referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass."

23. Josef Mengele

SS physician assigned to Auschwitz; notorious for conducting so-called medical experiments on inmates, especially twins and dwarfs.

24. Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo)

regular uniformed German police force.

25. Red Army

The army of the Soviet Union

26. Preventive Arrest

Instrument of detention that permitted criminal police detectives to take persons suspected of engaging in criminal activities into custody without warrant or judicial review of any kind.

27. SS

German abbreviation for Schutzstaffel A paramilitary formation of the Nazi party initially created to serve as bodyguards to Hitler and other Nazi leaders.

28. Sonderkommandos (special detachments)

in killing centers, Sonderkommandos consisted of those prisoners selected to remain alive as forced laborers to facilitate the killing process, particularly the disposal of corpses.

29. Synagogue

in Judaism, a house of worship and learning.

30. Weimar Republic

Name for the parliamentary democracy established in Germany, following the collapse of Imperial Germany and preceding Nazi rule.

31. Yellow star

a badge featuring the Star of David (a symbol of Judaism) used by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust as a method of visibly identifying Jews.