Holocaust Vocabulary

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. Aryan

• The Nazi term that meant a “superior Caucasian Gentile”

Superior?

3. Final Solution

• The term used by Nazis to mean the mass physical extermination of the Jews

4. Genocide

• The killing of a whole people or nation

5. Gestapo

• The German security police

6. S.S.

• The security organization of the National Socialist German Workers Party

7. Prejudice

• A judgment or opinion formed before the facts are known

8. Discrimination

• The unjust or prejudicial treatment of a group of people (actions)

9. Scapegoat

• A person, group, or thing that bears the blame for the mistakes or crimes of others

9. Third Reich

• Hitler’s administration in Germany

10. Auschwitz

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

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

11. Ghettos

Sections of to14towns or cities that the German occupation authorities and their allies used to concentrate, exploit, and starve regional Jewish populations.

12. Lodz Ghetto

• Pronounced (lo sch) • The first major ghetto, with 164,000 Jews

• Established in Poland on May 1,1940

13. Ration

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

14. Fascism

• A social and political ideology • A system of government with a centralized authority under a dictator

• Suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship

• The state or nation is the highest priority

• Personal/Individual freedoms often limited

15. antisemitism

• Prejudiice or discrimination against Jews.

16. stereotypes

• An oversimplified generalization about a person or group of people without regard for individual differences.

17. propaganda

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

18. Religious Terms

Cabbala• Jewish mysticism• An approach to Bible study that analyzes hidden meanings in the text

Torah and Talmud• Sacred Jewish texts