Holocaust/Night Vocab

Anti-Semitism

The act of hostility towards Jewish people as a religious or ethnic or racial group

Aryan

A term for peoples speaking the language of Europe and India. In Nazi racial theory, a person of pure German "blood"

Bystander

A person who is standing near but is not taking part in what is happening

Concentration Camps

A camp where prisoners or persecuted minorities are forcibly confined, usually under harsh conditions

Deportee

A person who is expelled from home or country by authority

Discrimination

Denial of justice, resources and fair treatment of individuals and groups (often based on social identity)

Edict

A formal or authoritative proclamation; an official order

Emaciated

Very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Gentile

Any person not Jewish

Ghetto

A poor densely populated city district; a quarter of a city in which Jews were formerly required to live

Holocaust

The systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II

Kristallnacht

"Night of broken glass"; the night of November 9-10, 1938, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property. The streets were littered with glass

Liquidation

The active removal of all Jewish persons from ghettos to either be killed or sent to a concentration camp

Liberation

The act of freeing someone or something

Perpetrator

One who brings about or carries out a crime or deception or harm

Prejudice

Premature judgment formed about a person, group or concept, based on incomplete or insufficient knowledge

Privilege

a special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste

Propaganda

The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

Racism

Hatred or intolerance towards another race or races

Scapegoat

A person, group or thing upon whom the blame for the mistakes of others is thrust; one falsely blamed for something based on that person or group's identity.

Stereotype

Oversimplified generalization about a person or group of people without regard for individual differences

Synagogue

The place of worship for a Jewish congregation

Upstander

One who frees another from confinement, danger or evil; someone who witnesses a behavior that could lead to something high risk or harmful, and makes the choice to intervene to make things better

Victim

A person that suffers harm or death from another or from an adverse act

Virulent

Actively poisonous; malignant or deadly

Assimilation

the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another

Bias

prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Displace

to force to move or flee; to move out of position

Eugenics

science dealing with improving hereditary qualities

Inhumane

without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel

Nazi

a German member of Adolf Hitler's political party

Privation

lack of basic life necessities; extreme poverty

Shiva

The Jewish seven-day period of ritual mourning after a death

Swastika

A symbol in the form of a black cross with each arm bent clockwise at a right angle, used as the emblem of the German Nazi party.

Partisans

Groups of organized guerilla fighters who aimed to damage the German war effort by attacking military targets, often using the forest for cover.