Night & The Holocaust Historical Terms

Flashcards covering historical terms related to Night and the Holocaust.

Hasidic

A Jewish sect founded upon mysticism, prayer, ritual strictness, religious zeal, and joy.

Cabbala

A form of Jewish mysticism offering mystical insight into divine nature.

Talmud

A written record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history.

Zohar

The most important text of Cabbala; part of the Oral Torah.

Genocide

The mass extermination of a very large group of people because of their nationality, race, or religion.

Gestapo

German Secret State Police.

Ghetto

Part of a city where Jews were required to live.

Phylacteries

Small boxes which contain Scripture, worn by Jewish men during weekday prayers.

Boche

A disparaging term for a German soldier.

SS

The elite guard, or special police force in the Nazi army which was headed by Himmler.

Kaddish

Prayer for the dead.

Sonder-Kommando

A prisoner slave labor group assigned to work in the killing area of an extermination camp.

Kapos

Concentration camp guards often noted for brutality and recruited from among the prisoners.

Pipel

A young apprentice or assistant.

Red Army

The Russian Army.

Nazi

The National Socialist German Workers Party.

Perpetrator

Those who commit crimes and other acts of injustice or violence.

Collaborator

Someone who has a part in aiding or assisting a perpetrator in committing crimes acts of injustice or violence.

Bystander

A person or group that sees unacceptable behavior but does nothing to stop it.

Resister

Those who refuse to go along with or accept injustice.

Upstander

An individual, group, or nation who acknowledges injustice and takes steps to stop or prevent it.

Rescuer

A person who attempts to save victims of violence.

"Choiceless Choices"

Situations in which no meaningful choices are available; scholar Lawrence Langer labels the circumstances many victims were confronted with as, choiceless choices. Therefore, it is not possible to judge victims' actions according to the standards we might use to judge people's actions under more normal circumstances.

Genocide (UN Definition)

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including killing members of the group causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group forcibly transferring children of the group to another group