Question | Answer |
Allies | The four major opponents of Germany in World War II- France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States |
Axis | The three important enemy nations of World War II- Germany, Japan, and Italy |
Anti-Semitism | Prejudice against Jews; Dislike of Jews; discrimination or persecution of Jews. |
Aryan | Hitler and the Nazis used this term to mean a group of people mostly in Northern Europe who were tall, blond, and blue-eyed. Hitler believed that Germans were the best example of these people. This race doesn't exist, but that didn't change his belief. |
"Canada" | The three large warehouses in Auschwitz that held the clothes and belonings of the Jews who had been gassed. The e |
Concentration Camps | In German, Konzentrationslager. Prison camps cinstrusted to hold Jews, political and religous opponents, resisters, homosexuals, and other Germans considered "enemies of the state." |
Crematorium | Ovens of furnaces where concentration or death camp prisoner's bodies were burned. |
Death Camps | These were Nazi centers of murder or extermination. Jews and non-Jews were brought to them as part of Hitler's "Final Solution." The death camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Chelmno, and Belzec) were established for murder of Europe's Jews. |
Einsatzgruppen | SS Mobile Killing Units; these firing squads followed the victorious German army through Eastern Europe amd parts of Russia, executing Jews wherever they were found. |
Euphemism | the use of a milder, more gentle expression instead of a harsher one. |
Final Solution | The Nazi term for their program to annihilate the Jews of Europe by gassing and any other means. This is one of the many euphemisms used by Hitler and the Nazi party. |
Fuehrer | German word for leader or cheif. Adolf Hitler's title as chancellor and head of state in Germany. |
Genocide | The deliberate and systematic killing of a whole people or nation. |
Gentile | A person of non-Jewish faith, especially a Christian. |
Gestapo | The Nazi Secret State Police. They arrested, jailed, and tortured untold thousands during the years of the Third Reich. |
Ghetto | The section of a city in which Jews are required to live. Ghettos were surrounded by guards, barbed wire, or brick walls. If Jews were found outside without permission, they were killed. |
Holocaust | The term that refers to the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews between 1933 and 1945. The word is a Greek translation of a word used in the Book of Genesis in the Bible meaning "total burning" and refers to a sacrifice of God. |
Judenrat | Jewish Council: administrive organizations set up in each ghetto by the German occupation forces to organize and administer the ghettos. |
Kapo | The leader of a concentration camp work group who was also a prisoner. |
Pogrom | A brief, planned, surprise attack against a defenseless Jewish community. |
SA (Storm Troops) | German word, Sturmabteilung, meaning Storm Troopers. A private Nazi army seperate from the regular German army. Members were average Germans. Had very little power after the early years of Nazi Rule. They were called "Brownshirts" b/c of their uniforms. |
Sonderkommando | "Special Commando" in English. The Jews temporarily spared to work in the death camps' killing centers. Eventually they too were murdered and replaced by new arrivals. |
SS (Protection Squads) | German word, Schutzstaffel. Began as Hitler's bodyguard; became private Nazi army and grew into the most powerful organization in Third Reich. Members were given special training and considered among best in the nation. Wore skull and crossbones. Ran CC. |
Swastika | An ancient symbol often used in Eastern religions as a symbol of life. In 1920, it was taken by the Nazi Party as its symbol. A twisted cross, it came to represent all the evils of Nazism. |
Third Reich | German word, reich-empire. According to Nazis, First Reich was a period of Germany's greatest power, the Holy Roman Empire, 962-1806. Second Reich was its next period of great power. |
Transit Camps | Prisoners were housed in these camps for a breif time before being moved to concentration, labor, or death camps. |
Zyklon B | The cyanide gas made of prussic acid that was used to kill Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwutz. The other death camps used carbon monoxide gas. |