Holocaust
Aryan | refers to groups of people who spoke a variety of related European and Asian languages; 19th and early 20th century, Aryans transformed into a mythical “race” claimed to be superior; In Germany, the Nazis promoted this false notion that glorified the German people as members of the "Aryan race," while discriminating against Jews, Black people, and Roma |
Antisemitism | prejudice against or hatred of Jews. |
Auschwitz | located in German-occupied Poland, was a complex of 3 camps, including a killing center. |
Concentration Camp | Camp where people were incarcerated indefinitely whom the Nazi regime perceived to be a security threat, to eliminate—by murder—individuals and small, targeted groups of individuals, and to exploit the so-called labor-potential of the prisoner population. |
Euthanasia | the systematic murder of people |
Fascism | Social/political ideology that the state is the highest priority rather than personal freedoms |
Final Solution | the deliberate, planned mass murder of European Jews. It occurred between 1941 and 1945 |
Forced Marches (formerly called death marches) | Marches organized by SS officers to transport prisoners on foot out of concentration camps |
Genocide | refers to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. |
Gentile | A person who is not Jewish |
Ghettos | enclosed districts that isolated Jews from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. Three types: Closed (walled off), Open (no walls, but restrictions), and Destruction (tightly sealed and existed for 2 to 6 weeks |
Holocaust | Term first used in the late 1950s to describe the systematic torture and murder of approximately six million European Jews and millions of other "undesirables" by the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. It literally translates to completely burned sacrifice or offering. |
Josef Mengele | SS doctor who largely responsible for conducting pseudo-science experiments on Jews, twins, and the physically and mentally disabled |
Killing Center | Six major camps designed and built for the sole purpose of killing Jews (Final Solution). These were: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. |
Kristallnacht | Pogrom in which meaning Jewish business and synagogues were looted and destroyed; in English means “Night of the Broken Glass” |
Kommando | German word for detachment, such as a detachment of concentration camp prisoners at forced labor. |
Musselmann (German) | A slang term for a prisoner who had given up the will to live |
Nazi | Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Political Party (1919 to 1945); responsible for the persecution and mass extermination of Jews |
Nuremberg Laws | A set of German laws passed to strip Jews of their rights as German citizens |
Pogrom | An organized, state-sponsored attack on a group of people. |
Prejudice | This is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. |
Propaganda | False or partly false information used by a government to sway opinions of the population |
Selection | Process of separating prisoners based on “ability” to work upon arrival at the concentration camps |
Stereotype | This is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. |
Swastika | Once an ancient symbol used to ward off evil spirits, the Nazis adopted it as their official symbol |
SS | The German army’s elite guard, organized to serve as Hitler’s personal protectors and to administer the concentration camps |
T4 Program | The goal of the Nazi Euthanasia Program was to kill people with mental and physical disabilities. In the Nazi view, this would cleanse the “Aryan” race of people considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society |
Yellow Star of David (Jewish Badge) | All Jews were ordered to wear this symbol on their clothing as a way of denoting that they were Jewish |