Holocaust - Vocabulary

Anti-Semitism

Hatred, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.

Arbeit Macht Frei

A German phrase meaning “Work makes you free.

Aryan

A term appropriated by the Nazis to describe a supposed “master race” of non-Jewish, white Europeans, particularly those of Northern European descent. This racial ideology was central to Nazi beliefs.

Auschwitz

The largest and most infamous Nazi concentration and extermination camp, located in German-occupied Poland. Over 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered there.

Concentration Camp

Facilities established by the Nazis to detain and imprison political prisoners, Jews, Roma, and other groups. Conditions were inhumane, and many camps evolved into extermination centers.

Crematorium

A furnace used for burning human bodies. At death camps, crematoria were used to dispose of the corpses of those murdered in gas chambers or who died from other causes.

Einsatzgruppen

Mobile killing units of the SS responsible for mass shootings of Jews, Roma, communists, and others, particularly in Eastern Europe following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Final Solution

The Nazi plan to systematically exterminate the Jewish people. It led to the genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust.

Ghetto

Designated urban areas where Jews were forcibly confined and segregated from the rest of the population under Nazi rule. Ghettos were overcrowded, starved, and plagued by disease.

Holocaust

The state-sponsored, systematic genocide of six million Jews and millions of others (including Roma, disabled individuals, and others) by the Nazi regime during World War II.

Jude

German for “Jew.” The Nazis used this term in propaganda and required Jews to wear badges labeled “Jude” to identify and stigmatize them.

Judenrat

Jewish councils established by the Nazis in ghettos to enforce Nazi orders, including organizing deportations to concentration and extermination camps.

Kristallnacht

“Night of Broken Glass” – A violent pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria on November 9–10, 1938. Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were destroyed; around 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to camps.

Lebensraum

Meaning “living space,” this was a key part of Nazi ideology advocating for German territorial expansion into Eastern Europe, displacing or eliminating non-German populations.

Nazi

A member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazis ruled Germany from 1933–1945 and were responsible for World War II and the Holocaust.

Nuremberg Laws

Anti-Semitic laws enacted in 1935 that stripped Jews of German citizenship and banned marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews.

Pogrom

An organized massacre or violent attack against a particular ethnic group, especially Jews. Pogroms occurred in Eastern Europe and escalated under Nazi rule.

Shoah

A Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe,” commonly used to refer to the Holocaust, particularly within Jewish communities.

Sonderkommando

Jewish prisoners in extermination camps forced under threat of death to dispose of gas chamber victims and operate crematoria.

SS

Schutzstaffel. An elite paramilitary organization under the Nazi Party. Originally Hitler’s bodyguards, they became one of the main instruments of terror and ran the concentration and extermination camps.

Swastika

A symbol co-opted by the Nazi Party as its emblem. It became a symbol of hate, fascism, and anti-Semitism due to its association with Nazi ideology.

Third Reich

The Nazi term for their regime in Germany (1933–1945), portraying it as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (First Reich) and the German Empire (Second Reich).

Zyklon-B

A cyanide-based pesticide used by the Nazis in gas chambers at extermination camps such as Auschwitz to murder millions of people.