Holocaust History Quarter 1

alienation

feeling of separation from others

allies

four major opponents of Germany in WWII (France, Great Britain, Soviet Union and United States)

antisemitism

prejudice against/dislike of Jews

appel

roll call in camps

appelplatz

roll call area in camps

armistice

peace

aryan

used by Nazis to mean a “superior” white race

Auschwitz

first of 3 camps that made up Auschwitz-Birkenau-Monowitz; most infamous camp

Beer-hall Putsch

event taking place in Munich, Germany in 1923; Hitler led an attempt to seize the government (putsch); failed and resulted in a jail sentence for him and a lesson that in order to gain power, he had to work within the system

Belzec

death camp in Poland; ~500,000 Jews were killed there

Bergen-Belsen

concentration camp in Germany

Bermuda Conference of Refugees

conference held in Bermuda, April 1943, to decide what to do about those in flight from the Nazis, especially Jews; produced no plan and revealed indifference of Allied governments

Birkenau

aka. Auschwitz II; death camp & site of the 4 gas chambers

Brezhinka

storehouse of clothing collected from victims at Auschwitz

Buchenwald

one of the first concentration camps in Germany

Bund

Jewish political organization in Poland

Castration

surgical removal of testicles/genitals

Chelmno

first death camp in Poland

collective responsibility

act of holding a group responsible for the actions of any individual members

concentration camp

place which prisoners of the state are kept

crematorium

ovens/furnaces where concentration and death camp prisoners’ bodies were kept

Dachau

first concentration camp by the Nazis in 1933 near Munich, Germany

death camps

Nazi centers of murder/extermination

death marches

the prisoners of Auschwitz and other camps in Poland were forced by the Germans to march to camps in Germany as Russian armies approached from the east

deportation

forced removal of Jews in Nazi-occupied lands

displaced persons

survivors of the Holocaust who had no homes after the war and were often placed in Displaced Persons Camps

Dolchstosslegende

myth of “stab in the back” used by Nazis and other opponents of the democratic Weimar Republic

dysentery

infectious disease which produces diarrhea which becomes uncontrollable and often leads to internal bleeding and ulcer and stomach complications

Einsatzgruppen

SS mobile killing units, sought out & slaughtered Jews in eastern Poland and Russia

euthanasia

so-called “mercy-killing” ; plans were to kill the “feeble-minded”, old, physically handicapped, or “useless” people in Germany

extermination

term used to refer to the annihilation/total destruction of the Jews

extermination camps

established in Poland for the purpose of killing Jews—Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Maidanek, Chelmno, and Belzec

fascism

extreme conservative political philosophy

final solution

mass murder of all Jews

Freikorps

armed fighters, violent defenders of right-wing political ideas; Nazi SA was formed from this