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Holocaust Vocabulary
Holocaust Vocab. List #15
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Reich | The official name of the Nazi regime; ruled from 1933 to 1945 under the command of Adolf Hitler. Historically, the First Reich was the medieval Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. The Second Reich included the German Empire from 1871-1918. |
| Shoah | A Hebrew word meaning "catastrophe," referring to the Holocaust. |
| Ghetto | Sections of towns and cities that the German occupation authorities and their allies used to concentrate, exploit, and starve regional Jewish populations. |
| survivor | Within the context of the Holocaust, it is someone who escaped death at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. |
| Aryan | A rather ambiguous term the Nazis primarily applied to people of Northern European racial background. Although never defined, in April 1933, the Nazis defined "non-these" as individuals who had a parent or grandparent who was Jewish. |
| boycott | To abstain from using, buying, or dealing with a business as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion. |
| ideology | The body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group. |
| genocide | The United Nations defines it as 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 |
| desecration | 1 To divest of sacred or hallowed character or office. 2) To divert from a sacred to a profane use or purpose. 3) To treat with sacrilege; profane. |
| discrimination | The denial of justice and fair treatment by both individuals and institutions in many arenas, including employment, education, housing, banking, and political rights. An action that can follow prejudicial thinking. |
| dehumanization | As a political or social measure, this is intended to change the manner in which a person or group of people are perceived, reducing the target group to objects or beings not worthy of human rights. |
| bias | 1) A particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned: 2) Unreasonably hostile feelings or opinions about a social group; prejudice: |
| antisemitism | Prejudice or discrimination against Jews. This can be based on hatred against Jews because of their religious beliefs or their group membership (ethnicity), but also on the erroneous belief that Jews are a race. |
| Gypsies | A collective term often used for Sinti and Roma communities living throughout Eastern Europe since the fifteenth century. They were considered an asocial element by the Nazis and persecuted relentlessly. (See also Sinti-Roma.) |
| collaborator | One who works with others, collaborates with others, and cooperates with others. |
| Gestapo | The Nazi Secret State Police who were directly involved in implementing the murder of Jews and other Nazi victims during the Holocaust. |
| Holocaust | The murder of about 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. Sinti-Roma, Poles, people with physical and mental disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents were also targeted by the Nazis. |
| Jehovah's Witness | A religious sect that originated in the United States and had about 20,000 members in Germany in 1933. Their religious beliefs did not allow them to swear allegiance to any worldly power, making them enemies in the eyes of the Nazi state. |
| pogrom | Originally a Russian word meaning "devastation" used to describe organized, large-scale acts of violence against Jewish communities, especially the kind instigated by the authorities in Czarist Russia. |
| Kristallnacht Pogrom | An organized pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. Kristallnacht is also known as the "Night of Broken Glass," or "Crystal Night." |
| propoganda | False or partly false information used by a government or political party intended to sway the opinions of the population. |