Glossary of Holocaust Terms
Allegiance: loyalty or commitment of a subordinate to a superior or of an individual to a group or cause
Allies: Group of countries that fought against the Axis Powers during WWII. Includes: Great Britain, United States, China, and the Soviet Union
Annexation: to acquire by force
Annihilation: complete destruction
Anti-Semitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews
Aryan: According to Nazism the "Aryan race" was a superior race which they identified with the Nordic (blond hair and blue eyes) people.
Atonement: The process of forgiveness; part of the Jewish celebration of Yom Kippur.
Axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan, who fought against the Allies in World War II
Blitzkrieg: An intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory.
Boycott: A ban that forbids relations with certain groups
Casualties: A person killed or injured in a war or accident.
Chancellor: A senior state or legal official
Civilian: A person not in the armed services or the police force
Commandant: Title given to the officer in charge of a military establishment; in World War II, it was the title given to the person in charge of a concentration camp.
Concentration Camp: A place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.
Confiscated: To seize or take someone's property with authority
Crematoria: A place where a dead person's body is cremated.
Death March: A forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way.
Demilitarized: Removing all military forces from an area
Deportation: The action of removing a person from a country or region
Dictator: A ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force.
Extermination: Killing, especially of a whole group of people or animals
Fascist: A form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
Final Solution: The Nazi policy of exterminating European Jews. The policy resulted in the murder of some 6 million Jews in concentration camps between 1941 and 1945.
Genocide: The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.
Gestapo: Abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe.
Ghetto: Put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group.
Gulag: A system of labor camps maintained in the former Soviet Union from 1930 to 1955 in which many people died.
Holocaust: Genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany systematically murdered approximately 6 million European Jews.
Ideology: A system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
Jewish: Relating to the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham.
Judenrate: A council representing a Jewish community, especially in German-occupied territory during World War II.
Kristallnacht": Night of the Broken Glass" refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938.
Lebensraum: The territory that a state or nation believes in needed for its natural development, especially associated with Nazi Germany.
Liberated: Freed from imprisonment, slavery, or enemy occupation.
Nazi: A member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the party of Adolf Hitler. Of or concerning the Nazis or Nazism.
Occupy: To take control of (a place, especially a country) by military conquest or settlement.
Parliament: A legislature that functions as the governing body for a country.
Persecute: subject someone to hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of their race or political or religious beliefs.
Pogroms: An organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe.
Propaganda: Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Quota: A fixed minimum or maximum number of a particular group of people allowed to do something, as immigrants to enter a country, workers to undertake a job, or students to enroll for a course.
Rabbi: A Jewish scholar or teacher; a person appointed as a Jewish religious leader
Refugee: A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
Reich (Third Reich): Literally meaning realm. Used to refer to empires. The Third Reich is the term for Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler
Resistance: The refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.
Rhineland: A loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine River.
Roma (Gypsy): A member of a traveling people traditionally living by itinerant trade and fortune telling. The Roma (Gypsies) speak a language (Romany) that is related to Hindi and are believed to have originated in South Asia.
Rosh Hashanah: the Jewish New Year
Satellite: Something that is separated from or on the edge of something else but is nevertheless dependent on or controlled by it.
Segregated: To be set apart from the rest or from each other; isolate or divide.
SS: Abbreviation of Schutzstaffel, German for "Protective Echelon" served as Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguards. Later it became one of the most powerful and feared organizations in all of Nazi Germany.
Synagogue: The building where a Jewish assembly or congregation meets for religious worship and instruction.
Torah: In Judaism the law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures.
Yom Kippur: The most solemn religious fast of the Jewish year, the last of the ten days of asking forgiveness that begins with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Zionist: a person who supports Zionism--the movement calling for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.
Glossary of Holocaust People
Churchill, Winston (1874 - 1965): Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Great Britain) from 1940 - 1945; he led Britain to victory in WWII.
Dollfuss, Engelbert (1892 - 1934): Became Austrian Federal Chancellor in 1932; he shut down parliament, banned the Austrian Nazi party and assumed dictatorial powers. He was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934.
Eichmann, Adolf (1906 - 1962): German SS lieutenant colonel and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. He was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.
Eisenhower, Dwight (1890 - 1969): American 5-star general who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during WWII.
Frank, Anne (1929 - 1945): German-born diarist who gained fame after death when her diary of her experiences in hiding during the Holocaust was published.
Frank, Hans (1900 - 1946): German war criminal and lawyer who worked for the Nazi Party and later became Adolf Hitler's personal lawyer. He instituted a reign of tenure against the Polish population and was involved in the mass murder of Jews.
Heydrich, Reinhard (1904 - 1942): A high-ranking German Nazi official during WWII and a main architect of the Holocaust. He was a leader in the SS and chaired the Wannsee Conference which formalized the plans for the "Final Solution."
Himmler Heinrich (1900 - 1945): Member of the SS and a leading member of the Nazi party. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and one of the people most responsible for the Holocaust.
Hitler, Adolf (1889 - 1945): A German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party and Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. As dictator, Hitler initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland and was central to the Holocaust.
Jodl, Alfred (1890 - 1946): A German general during World War II who served as the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command. He signed an unconditional surrender to end the war. He was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946.
Klein, Gerda Weissmann (1924 - ): Polish American writer and human rights activist. Her autobiographical account of her experiences during the Holocaust (All but My Life, 1957) was adapted into a short film (One Survivor Remembers) in 1995. She met her husband, Kurt Klein, when he came as part of the Untied States military operation that liberated her from German Nazis.
Kor, Eva Mozes (1934 - 2019): Eva Mozes Kor is a Holocaust survivor. Along with her twin sister, Miriam, she was subjected to human experimentation under Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. She survived and went on to found the CANDLES organization and museum. Her story was later recorded in the documentary film Forgiving Dr. Mengele.
Mengele, Josef, Dr.(1911 - 1979): German SS officer and physician in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. He was a member of the team of doctors responsible for the selection of victims to be killed in the gas chambers and for performing deadly human experiments on prisoners. Mengele left Auschwitz on 17 January 1945, shortly before the arrival of the liberating Red Army troops. After the war, he fled to South America, where he evaded capture for the rest of his life.
Mussolini, Benito (1883 - 1945): Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party. He ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943, constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped the pretense of democracy and established a dictatorship. Fought with Germany and Japan as part of the Axis Powers during World War II.
Riegner, Gerhart Dr. (1911 - 2001): Sent the famous Riegner Telegram through diplomatic channels to Stephen Samuel Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress. His telegram was the first official communication about the planned Holocaust. Quote: "Never did I feel so strongly the sense of abandonment, powerlessness and loneliness as when I sent messages of disaster and horror to the free world and no one believed me."
Roosevelt, Franklin (1882 - 1945): American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. Often rated as one of the top three presidents, he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II.
Rumkowski, Mordecai (1877 - 1944): A Polish Jew and wartime businessman appointed by Nazi Germany as the head of the Council of Elders in the Lodz Ghetto. He transformed the Ghetto into an industrial base manufacturing war supplies with the mistaken belief that productivity was the key to Jewish survival beyond the Holocaust. He is remembered for his speech Give Me Your Children, when the Germans demanded compliance with the deportation of 20,000 children to Chelmno extermination camp. In August 1944 Rumkowski and his family joined the last transport to Auschwitz. He was murdered there by Jewish inmates who beat him to death as revenge for his role in the Holocaust.
Stalin, Joseph (1878 - 1953): Soviet revolutionary and politician, governing the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. He led the Soviet Union during World War II as a member of the Allies who opposed Nazi Germany.
Stroop, Jurgen (1895 - 1952): German SS commander during the Nazi era who served as SS and Police Leader in occupied Poland. He led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. He was tried and convicted of murdering nine American POWs. He was extradited to Poland where he was tried, convicted, and executed for crimes against humanity.
von Hindenburg, Paul (1847 - 1934): Was a general field marshall and statesman who commanded the German military during the second half of World War I before later being elected President of the German Reich in 1925. He played the key role in the Nazi "Seizure of Power" in January 1933 when, under pressure, he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of a "Government of National Concentration," even though the Nazis were a minority in cabinet.
Wallenberg, Raoul (1912 - unknown): A Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for saving tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust and Hungarian Fascists during the later stages of World War II. He issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings designated as Swedish territory. During the Siege of Budapest, Wallenberg was detained on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared. He was later reported to have died on July 17, 1947 while imprisoned by the KGB. His arrest and imprisonment by the Soviet government, along with questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and his ties to US intelligence, remain mysterious and are the subject of continued speculation.
Wiesel, Elie (1928 - 2016): A Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Along with writing, he was a professor of the humanities at Boston University.
Wise, Stephen S. (1874 - 1949): An American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader