Holocaust Terms Defined

Please take notes in the Literature section of your binder.

1. Holocaust

• Destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, caused by fire or nuclear war

2. Genocide

• The killing of an ethnic, religious, or national group; it includes destruction of cultural and political institutions

3. Final Solution• The term used

by Nazis referring to the systematic plan to murder every Jewish man, woman, and child in Europe

4. Aryan• Nazi term

that meant a “superior Caucasian” from Northern Europe who wasn’t Jewish

5. Prejudice

• Prejudging or forming an opinion about a person before knowing the facts; prejudice is frequently based on stereotypes

6. Stereotypes

• Oversimplified generalizations about a person or group of people without regard for individual differences.

7. Discrimination• Unfair, unjust

or prejudicial actions in areas such as employment, education, housing, banking, and political rights

8. Antisemitism

• Prejudice or discrimination against Jews. Antisemitism is based on the false belief that Jews are a race; Jews were viewed by Nazis as racially inferior to Aryans.

9. Scapegoat

• To blame a person or group for something; prejudicial thinking and discriminatory acts can lead to scapegoating

10. Third Reich

• Hitler’s administration in Germany

11. Fascism• A social and political

ideology • A system of government

with a dictator• Suppression of the

opposition through terror and censorship

• The state or nation is the highest priority

• Personal/Individual freedoms often limited

12. Gestapo

• The German security police

13. S.S.(Schutzstaffel)

• The security organization of the National Socialist German Workers Party

14. Propaganda

• False or partly false information used by a government or political party intended to sway the opinions of a population

15. Ration

• a fixed amount of goods officially allowed to each person during a time of shortage, as in wartime.

16. Ghettos

Sections of towns or cities that the German occupation authorities and their allies used to concentrate, exploit, and starve regional Jewish populations.

17. Lodz Ghetto

• Pronounced (lo sch)

• The first major ghetto, with 164,000 Jews

• Established in Poland on May 1,1940

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005071&MediaId=3373

18. Concentration Camps

• Established by the Nazis, these were institutions of terror, control, punishment, and murder through hunger and/or disease

19. Auschwitz-Birkenau

• A city in southwestern Poland where there was an infamous concentration camp

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005189&MediaId=3371

19. Religious Terms

Cabbala / Kabbalah• Jewish mysticism• An approach to Bible study that analyzes

hidden meanings in the text

Torah and Talmud• Sacred Jewish texts