Holocaust Terms & Definitions Study Set for History

systematic

done or acting according to a fixed plan or system; methodical.

state-sponsored

Actions organized by the civil government of a country.

persecution

hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.

Jews

a member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham.

Nazi

National Socialist German Worker's Party - a far-right racist and anti-Semitic party led by Adolf Hitler

regime

a government, especially an authoritarian one

collaborators

People who work with another person or group in order to do something

race

A group of human beings distinguished by physical traits, blood types, genetic code patterns or genetically inherited characteristics.

racism

Belief that one race is superior to another

rabbi

A highly respected teacher of Jewish law or theology

ghetto

separate section of a city where members of a minority group are forced to live

swastika

the official emblem of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich

Holocaust/Final Solution

The attempted physical extermination of the Jewish people by the Nazis during WWII; between five and six million Jews were killed, essentially two out of three European Jews.

genocide

the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

liberation

the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression; release.

Gestapo

German secret police during the Nazi regime

Concentration Camps

prison camps used under the rule of Hitler in Nazi Germany. Conditions were inhuman, and prisoners, mostly Jewish people, were generally starved or worked to death, or killed immediately.

Master Race Theory

Part of Nazi fascism and Social Darwinism, the belief that certain races (white Germanic peoples, for example) are superior to others. These superior races are then justified to act however they see fit towards other racial and ethnic groups which they decide are "inferior."

crematorium

Furnaces where human bodies were burned

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)

Mobs ransacked more than seven thousand Jewish shops and synagogues, 91 died, 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.