Holocaust Vocabulary Words

Holocaust

Means fiery sacrifice

Ghettos

Segregated neighborhoods in which oppressed Jewish people dwelled

New Order Aryan Predominance

An ideology which insisted that the white, Aryan Germans were the superior race

Racial Purification

The removal of other races from existence to ensure biological superiority

Mischlinge

Word for “half breed” used to identify half jewish people with one Jewish grandparent

Anti-Semitism

Discriminatory behavior undertaken with the express purpose of degrading Jewish people

Krystallnacht

The night of broken glass- the event which Jewish people across Germany were brutalized for a night

Einstazgruppen

Action squads which engaged in full-scale mass killings of Jewish people

Final Solution

Hitler’s goal of complete obliteration of the European Jewish race

Genocide

Large-scale mass-murder

Gestapo

in charge of Nazi Party opposers and political dissenters

Kripo

Criminal Police in charge of homosexuals, prostitutes, & rromani people

Schutzstaffel

ruthless military disciplinarians, “protective unit”

Anne Frank

A young Jewish girl who died in the concentration camps of tuberculosis. The publishing of her personal diary by her father (the lone survivor of her family) spread awareness about the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany

Nuremberg Trials

Trials at which Hitler’s coconspirators were tried and found guilty of multiple acts of crimes against humanity

Kapo

Prisoner trustee who carried out the instructions of the camp commanders

Kommando

Work force or detachment

Sonderkommando

Composed of concentration camp prisoners forced to aid in the disposal of those succumbed to the cyanide gas.

Zyclon B

Cyanide developed by a Jewish-German chemist & 1818 Nobel Laurcreate Fritz Haber, known as the father of chemical warfare whose son and wife committed suicide out of guilt.

NAZI

Nationalsozialistche Deutsche Archeiter Partei