Holocaust Final Exam prep

Abba Kovner

Jewish partisan leader who warned early that Nazis planned total Jewish extermination.

Adam Czerniakow

Head of Warsaw Ghetto Judenrat who committed suicide rather than sign deportation orders.

Adolf Eichmann

Nazi officer who organized deportations and administered the Final Solution.

Auschwitz

Largest Nazi camp complex; major site of mass extermination and forced labor.

Babi Yar

Ravine near Kyiv where over 33,000 Jews were shot by Einsatzgruppen in 1941.

Belzec

Operation Reinhard death camp where about 430,000 Jews were murdered.

Bergen-Belsen

German camp notorious for starvation and disease; many died near war’s end.

Bermuda Conference

1943 U.S.-British meeting on refugees that produced no rescue action.

Casablanca Conference

Allied meeting declaring “unconditional surrender” as war goal.

Chaim Rumkowski

Leader of Lodz Ghetto Judenrat known for compliance with German demands.

Chelmno

First extermination camp using gas vans to kill Jews from Lodz region.

Death Marches

Forced evacuations of camps as Allies approached; thousands died from brutality.

Displaced Persons

Survivors left homeless after WWII, living in Allied-run DP camps.

Einsatzgruppen

Mobile killing units that shot over 1 million Jews in the USSR.

Emanuel Ringelblum

Historian who led the Oyneg Shabbes documentation project in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Final Solution

Nazi plan for the systematic genocide of all European Jews.

Gas Chambers

Facilities used to kill large numbers of victims with Zyklon B or carbon monoxide.

General Government

Nazi-controlled area of occupied Poland where ghettos and camps were located.

Ghetto

Sealed districts forcing Jews into overcrowded, starving conditions.

Holocaust by Bullets

Mass shootings of Jews in Eastern Europe before extermination camps were built.

Hunger Plan

Nazi strategy to starve millions of Soviet civilians to feed German forces.

Jäger Report

Nazi document listing over 130,000 Jews murdered by Einsatzkommando 3.

Josef Mengele

Auschwitz doctor known for selections and medical experiments on prisoners.

Judenrat

Jewish councils forced to administer ghettos and follow German orders.

Kielce Pogrom

1946 antisemitic riot in Poland that killed 42 returning Jewish survivors.

Madagascar Plan

Abandoned Nazi idea to deport all European Jews to Madagascar.

Mordechai Anielewicz

Leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Oyneg Shabbes Archive

Secret Warsaw Ghetto archive documenting daily life and Nazi crimes.

Operation Barbarossa

1941 German invasion of the USSR that initiated mass shootings of Jews.

Operation Reinhard

Plan to murder Polish Jews; created Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

Operation Tannenberg

Nazi plan to eliminate Polish elites at the start of occupation.

Operation Torch

1942 Allied invasion of North Africa; first major U.S. land operation.

Order Service

Ghetto police controlled by Germans to enforce Nazi policies.

Paper Brigade

Vilna intellectuals who saved Jewish cultural materials from destruction.

Raoul Wallenberg

Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Riegner Telegram

1942 warning to the West that Nazis intended to exterminate all European Jews.

Rosenstrasse Protest

Successful protest by German wives demanding release of their Jewish husbands.

Rudolf Kastner

Hungarian Jewish leader who negotiated with Eichmann to save selected Jews.

Sobibor

Operation Reinhard death camp; site of a major prisoner revolt in 1943.

Sonderkommando

Jewish prisoners forced to work in crematoria and gas chambers.

Szmul Zygielbojm

Polish Jewish representative who committed suicide to protest Allied inaction.

T-4 Program

Nazi euthanasia program killing disabled Germans; precursor to death camps.

Theresienstadt

Ghetto-camp used as propaganda; also a transit point to extermination camps.

Treblinka

Major Operation Reinhard extermination camp where ~900,000 Jews were killed.

Tuvia Bielski

Leader of the Bielski partisan group that saved over 1,000 Jews in the forest.

Umschlagplatz

Deportation point in Warsaw where Jews were sent to Treblinka.

Vichy France

Collaborationist French regime that aided Nazi deportation efforts.

Wannsee Conference

1942 meeting where Nazis coordinated the plan to murder Europe’s Jews.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1943 armed Jewish revolt against deportations to Treblinka.

Yalta Conference

1945 Allied meeting shaping postwar Europe and Soviet influence.

Zyklon B

Pesticide used as the main killing agent in Auschwitz gas chambers.