The Journey back

Glossary

  • Antisemitism - Is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, and/or religion. In its extreme form, it "attributes to the Jews an exceptional position among all other civilizations, defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nations". The events that led to the beginning of the destruction: אירועים שהובילו לתחילת ההשמדה
  • The Nuremberg Laws - חוקי נירנברג In 1935, they were Anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and Anti-Semitism. There was a rapid growth in German legislation directed at Jews.
  • The Wannsee Conference - ועידת ואנזה Was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich had been appointed as the chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question".
  • Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)- ליל הבדולח
  • The Final Solution - הפתרון הסופי של שאלת היהודים באירופה Was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust.
  • Crematorium - משרפות. שריפת גופות (בלטינית: קרמטוריום) Cremation is the process of reducing dead bodies to basic chemical compounds in the form of gases and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high temperatures and vaporization. The remains of Jews and other concentration camp inmates who were exterminated were disposed of by the Nazis using this method. This method was considered to be deeply offensive to Orthodox Judaism, because Halakha, the Jewish law, forbids cremation and additionally holds that it is painful to the soul of a cremated person. This is because the soul of a recently dead person is not fully aware that they died, and they experience seeing their body burnt (this is also one of the reasons autopsies are forbidden under normal circumstances). In a normal burial, as the body decays, slowly the soul moves "farther" from it. Since then, cremation has carried an extremely negative connotation for many Jews.
  • Einsatzgruppen ("task forces") - האיינזצגרופן These were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories.
  • Gas Chambers - תאי הגזים During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The most commonly used poisonous agent was hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
  • Judenräte ("Jewish council") were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.
  • Jewish resistance under the Nazi rule - ההתנגדות היהודית בשואה
  • The Jewish Combat Organization - (הארגון היהודי הלוחם (אי"ל
  • Kindertransport (also Refugee Children Movement or "RCM'") - משלוח ילדים
  • Nazi human experimentation - הניסויים הרפואיים בבני אדם בתקופת השואה was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners by the German Nazi regime in its concentration camps during World War II. Prisoners were forced to participate.
  • Nazi Propaganda - התעמולה הנאצית Attempts to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the Nazi Party. Famous antisemitic propaganda movies: 1. Jud Süß (Jew Süss) is a 1940 film produced by Terra Filmkunst on behalf of the Nazi regime. 2. The Eternal Jew (1940). The film poses as a documentary. The "Wandering Jew" in medieval folklore, directed by Fritz Hippler.
  • Partisan (Irregular military) - פרטיזנים
  • Righteous among the Nations - חסידי אומות העולם It is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
  • The death marches - צעדת המוות The forcible movement between autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.
  • The Gestapo - "משטרת המדינה החשאית" של גרמניה הנאצית It was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler. From September 1939 forward it was administered by the RSHA ("Reich Main Security Office") and was considered a sister organization of the SD ("Security Service") and also a sub office of the SiPo ("security police").
  • The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) - המפלגה הנאצית The Nazi Party was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers' Party (DAP) prior to a change of name in 1920.The party's last leader, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. Hitler rapidly established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich. Nazi ideology stressed the failures of communism, liberalism, and democracy, supported the "racial purity of the German people" and that of other Northwestern Europeans, and claimed itself as the protector of Germany from Jewish influence and corruption.
  • The Schutzstaffel (SS) - חיל ההגנה, או פלוגות המגן Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II. The SS was formed in 1925 as a personal guard unit for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
  • The Waffen-SS - וואפן אס.אס Was a military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel ("Protective Squadron") or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it. It was Adolf Hitler's will that the Waffen-SS never be integrated into the army, it was to remain the armed wing of the Party and to become an elite police force once the war was won.
  • The Sturmabteilung (SA), Storm troopers - אס.אה Functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. SA men were often called "brown shirts" for the color of their uniforms.
  • The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service) was primarily the intelligence service of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. אס.די. - שירות הביטחון
  • The yellow badge - הטלאי הצהוב
  • Operation Reinhard - מבצע ריינהרד The code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka, almost all of whom were Jews.
Types of camps:
  • Internment - מחנה ריכוז
  • A labor camp - מחנה עבודה
  • Extermination camps (death camps) - מחנה השמדה


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