Achtung!
German: "Attention!"
Hebrew: "ascent." Zionist term for emigration to the land of Israel.
Amtsgruppe D
Branch of the
WVHA, which administered the concentration camps.Ani maamin
Hebrew: "I believe." A prayer asserting belief in the coming of the Messiah, "even though he tarries."
Antisemitism
Hatred of the Jews. The term was coined in 1879 by the Austrian journalist Wilhelm Marr in an attempt to elevate hatred into doctrine. Although sometimes written anti-Semitism, this spelling is not preferred because it falsely implies the existence of an ideology called "Semitism" to which antisemitism is merely the principled opposition.
German: "union." The annexation of Austria into Germany in March 1938 approved by plebiscite in the two countries on April 10, 1938.
Antreten
Assembly.
Appell
Roll call at 4:30 in the morning and lasting about an hour, regardless of the weather.
Arbeit macht frei
"Work is liberty": the slogan over the entrance gate at Auschwitz and other Lagers. Pictured is the gate to Terezin Small Fortress.
Arbeitsdienst
Work office: the bureau of the camp that assigned prisoners to work details.
Arbeitslager
Slave-labor camp.
Arisierung
A particular phase of
Gleischschaltung during which all Jewish property, businesses, and professional positions were transferred into "Aryan" hands.Originally a philological term for distinguishing the Indo-European languages from the Near Eastern, it was the Nazi classification for the "master race." The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 established the legal categories of Aryan ("person of German origin"), racial Jew (see
Jude), and Mischling.Asoziale
"Asocials": Nazi designation for the homeless, beggars, Gypsies, pimps, prostitutes, the unemployed—anyone who violated "the order of the
Volkgemeinschaft."Auskleideraum
Undressing room. (Plural: Auskleideräume.)
Ausladen!
Unload!
"Utilization": Nazi euphemism for the removal of gold teeth, fillings, and hair from the dead. This was carried out by the
Sonderkommando.Bademinister
Prisoner in charge of the showers.
Baths
Euphemism for the gas chambers. (German: bade.)
Blockälteste
"Block elders." Usually Germans, they were put in charge of the barracks by the
SS.B’rakha
Hebrew: "blessing." The traditional form of Jewish prayer, which begins "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe. . . ."
Brihah
The illegal immigration of European Jews to Palestine, during and after the war.
Brot
German: "bread."
Bunker
Detention cell.
Both the prisoner unit charged with collecting the belongings of prisoners as they arrived and the depository where these belongings were stored. (The official name of the depository was the Effektenkammer.)
Oven for burning the dead. (Plural: crematoria.) Manufactured by Topf
& Sons.DAW
Deutsche Ausruestungswerke
(German Armament Works). An SS-owned company using forced labor from concentration camps for armament production. Plants were built at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Janowska, Ravensbrück, Stutthof, and elsewhere.Forced marches of
Häftlinge over long distances under heavy guard and extremely harsh conditions.Although the term is vulgarly used for negationism, Holocaust denial is the psychological or political difficulty of admitting the scope or enormity of the Nazi genocide. In the psychological sense, when it is sometimes called paralysis, the person "knows" cognitively that the German Nazis intended to annihilate the Jews of Europe, but the reality of the annihilation cannot be accepted or grasped. In the political sense, glib and superficial analogies to the Holocaust, ranging from Rush Limbaugh on the right (who speaks of "femi-nazis") to Jesse Jackson on the left (who claims that African Americans are being subjected to "economic genocide"), can now be seen as Holocaust denial in this special and restricted sense, because they minimize the reality.
Diaspora
Greek: "dispersion." The term for the Jewish community residing outside Israel. (The Hebrew equivalent is galut, "exile.")
Durchfall
German: "diarrhea."
Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer
"One empire, one people, one ruler": German slogan.
Einsatzgruppen
Mobile killing units. (Singular: Einsatzgruppe.)
"Final solution" of the
Judenfrage. The Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust.Effektenkammer
See
"Canada."Fressen
To eat like an animal. (To eat like a human being is essen.)
"Leader": Hitler’s honorific title.
Gas van
Truck with a hermetically sealed compartment to serve as a mobile gas chamber; used expecially at Chelmno.
Gemacht
German: "done, finished."
Territory in central and southern Poland established after the defeat of Poland in September 1939; it had a German civilian administration.
Genickschuss
Execution by gunshot into the nape of the neck.
Geheime Staatspolizei:
the Prussian Secret State Police, established by Hermann Göring.First used in Venice in the 16th century to refer to the section of the city known as geto nuovo or "New Foundary," it became the general term for any urban district to which Jews were legally confined.
The incorporation of new land into the Reich in all politico-economic aspects.
Greater Germany
Term that came into common usage after the
Anschluss, referring to Germany and its annexed territories.Häftling
German: "prisoner." (Plural: Häftlinge.) Pictured are Häftlinge at the liberation of Buchenwald in the famous photograph by Margaret Bourke-White, published in Life on May 7, 1945.Holocaust
Greek, holokaustos: "burnt whole." Originally, in the Septuagint—the third-century Greek version of the Bible—it was the translation of the Hebrew olah, the term for "what is brought up" for Temple sacrifice.
Hurban
Hebrew: "ruin, waste, desolation." A general term for catastrophe in Jewish history. Originally designating the destruction of the first and second Temples, it is used (primarily among Yiddish speakers) to refer to the Holocaust, which is called the "third Hurban [pronounced with a hard initial H]."
Iron Guard
Rumanian fascist and antisemitic organization sympathetic to the Nazis.
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Founded in 1914 to provide aid to Jews overseas. Also known as the AJDC or the JDC.
German: "Jew." According to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, a "racial Jew" was a person with (a) at least three Jewish grandparents, (b) two Jewish grandparents and who belonged to the Jewish religious community (or joined it after 1935), (c) married to a Jew, or (d) after 1935, the child of a Jew.
"Jewish question": a political term dating from before the Holocaust and referring to the issue of the Jews’ status as a "racial" or "national" minority in a European country.
Judenfrei
"Free of Jews": said of a city or district after expulsion of the last Jews. Pictured is the synagogue in Bydgoszcz, Poland, with a sign in German across the entrance: "Diese Stadt ist Judenfrei!—This city is free of Jews!" (ca. Dec. 1939).
Jewish Council: a semi-autonomous government appointed by the Nazis to oversee a ghetto. (Plural: Judenräte.)
Kabbalah
The tradition of Jewish mysticism. Founded upon the belief that God has withdrawn from human history, it engages in the pursuit of communion with Him.
Kaddish
Jewish prayer for the dead (in Aramaic, not Hebrew). It begins Yitgadal v’yitkadash sheme raba (see Wiesel’s Night, p. 31).
Kanada
See
"Canada."Kapo
A prisoner—usually a German criminal—appointed by the SS to oversee a work unit. Origin of the term is unknown; perhaps derived from Italian capo, "boss."
Kazett, KZ
Short for concentration camp (Konzentrationlager); sometimes used to designate a Häftling. The official
SS abbreviation was KL.K.B.
See
"Krakenbau."Keine Angst
German: "no pain."
Kosher
Hebrew: "fit." The description of food that is fit for eating under Jewish law. (Unfit food is called, in Yiddish, treyf.)
Hospital or infirmary. Abbreviated K.B.
Krematorium
See
"Crematorium."
"Night of broken glass": the anti-Jewish riots of November 9-10, 1938. Pictured is the Frankfurt Börneplatz Synagogue, originally built in 1882, after being set ablaze during the riots.
German: "camp."
Lagerälteste
"Camp elders." Usually Germans, they were placed in charge of a camp’s entire prisoner population.
Lebenskampf
"Struggle for life": Nazi term for the behavior of the condemned in the gas chambers.
Lebensraum
The Hitlerian doctrine that sought to justify expansion of the German Reich.
Los!
German: "get going!"
Nazi classification of persons who were neither "racial Jews" nor "Aryans." A Mischling, first degree, was a person with two Jewish grandparents who was not religiously affiliated with the Jewish community nor married to a Jew. A Mischling, second degree, was a person with only one Jewish grandparent.
Mittag
German: "lunch."
Musselmann
Literally, "Moslem." Camp slang for a prisoner close to death, an "inmate whose skin was all that held his bones together," "whose will has been completely drained from [his] veins" (from Shivitti by Ka-Tzetnik 135633). (Plural: Musselmänner.)
Nacht und Nebel
German: "night and fog." Decree establishing the German policy of arrest and deportation to Germany of anyone suspected of anti-German resistance in western Europe. The arrested were not permitted to contact family members, disappearing into the "night and fog."
Nazi
Acronym for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP, the party headed by Hitler and the only political party legally permitted in Germany from 1934 to 1945.
Pseudo-scholarly effort to dispute the factuality of the Holocaust. Although sometimes called denial, the term negation, first proposed by the French sociologist Nadine Fresco, is preferable, because negationists do not merely deny the reality of the Holocaust but seek to nullify its place in history.
Oberkapo
Head Kapo.
Camp slang: "It was the equivalent of stealing, or of getting something on the black market through some fiddle, barter, or extortion" (Jorge Semprun, Literature or Life.)
Operation Reinhard
Nazi code name for the annihilation of the Jews in the
Generalgouvernement, encompassing the extermination camps Belzec, Sobibór, and Treblinka. These camps had no organizational link to the concentration-camp system, being controlled instead by the ss leadership of the Lublin District.Pawiak
Prison in the Warsaw Ghetto used by the
SD from October 2, 1939, to August 21, 1944.Payess
The long curling earlocks worn by traditional Jewish males.
Pesah
Passover. (Pronounced with hard final h.)
Pogrom
Violent, organized assault upon Jews, usually with the connivance of government officials.
Prominenten
German: those "prominent"
Häftlinge, either because they were German or who managed to attain some power or privileges by various means ranging from "organization" to betrayal.Protekcja
Polish word used as slang for specially protected privileges or "connections."
Raus!
German: "out!"
Reb
Yiddish title of respect, equivalent to the English "Mister."
Revisionism
Legitimate scholarly questioning of dominant or received opinion. Holocaust negationists describe themselves (and want to be described) as "revisionists" in the hope of gaining academic respectability for their pseudo-scholarly fraudulence. To call them this, then, is to collude, if unwittingly, in their fraud. Genuine and respectable Holocaust revisionists include the historians Peter Novick, Albert S. Lindemann, David E. Stannard, the political scientist Norman G. Finkelstein, and others who call into question the uniqueness thesis, which is the dominant opinion in Holocaust scholarship.
RSHA
Nazi abbreviation for Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office), the organizational umbrella covering the police (including both the criminal police and the
Gestapo and the SD Beginning in September 1939 it functioned as the chief security bureau of the SS.Rosh Hashanah
The Jewish new year.
Ruhe!
German: "quiet!"
Sturmabteilung
or "Storm Troopers." Nazi street fighters before Hitler’s rise to power. After 1934, the SS supplanted the SA as the Nazi Party’s paramilitary organization.Scheissminister
Prisoner in charge of the latrines.
Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS
(Security Service of the SS). The intelligence-gathering agency of the Nazi party.A selection of
Häftlinge for the gas chambers.Sezierraum
Dissection room.
Shabbes, Shabbat
Jewish sabbath, which begins at sundown on Friday.
Shoah
Hebrew: "devastation, ruin." Gaining in acceptance among Jews and scholars as the word Holocaust is appropriated for other genocidal and quasi-genocidal events, the term was used by Polish Jews as early as 1940 to describe their suffering under Hitler.
Shtetl
Yiddish: a Jewish town or village. (Plural: shtetlakh.)
Jewish prayerbook.
Simhat Torah
Hebrew: "Joy of the Torah." The Jewish holiday celebrating the completion of the annual cycle of the public reading of the Bible.
Sonderbehandlung
Literally, "special treatment." Official Nazi designation for the police procedure (requiring neither judicial review nor decree) by which Jews were rounded up and transported to the
Lagers.Literally, "special unit." The prisoner unit charged with
Auswertung and burning the bodies of the dead in the crematoria. (The Nazi guards themselves did not do so.)Schutzstaffeln:
originating as the Stoss Truppe Hitler—his personal bodyguard—it was the elite military corps under the control of Heinrich Himmler and distinct from both the army and the police.State contentration camps: the official Nazi designation for the system.
German: "State subjects." The term in the Reich Citizenship Law, the first of the Nuremberg laws issued on September 15, 1935, which distinguished Jews from "Aryans," who were described as Reichsbürger.
Statut des Juifs
French: "Jewish statute." Two laws in Vichy France (October 1940, June 1941) that provided the legal foundation for the persecution of the Jews in France.
Suppe
Soup.
Jewish prayershawl.
Talmud
The multivolume commentary on the
Torah, dating from the first century of the Common Era and produced by the rabbis made famous by Jesus as the Pharisees; also known as the "oral law."Tefillin
Sometimes called "phylacteries." Leather thongs and boxes worn by observant male Jews at prayer. Pictured is a pious Jew in tallit and tefillin who is being tormented by Nazi soldiers. They are forcing him to pray over his fellow Jews, whom they have just murdered.
The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures—the five books of Moses—also known as the "written law." It is also a general term for Jewish learning.
"Death’s Head Unit":
SS concentration-camp guard unit created in March 1936 and later absorbed into the Waffen-SS.Umschlagplatz
German: "debarkation place." Square at 4-8 Stawki Street in Warsaw, apparently called Transfer (Przeladunkowy) Square before the war, bordered by a railroad siding, where the Jews of Warsaw were gathered and deported to Treblinka.
Argument that the Holocaust was unique. Though advanced during the Holocaust by several
ghetto diarists—Zelig Kalmanovitsh, Chaim Kaplan, Abraham Lewin—the thesis is now primarily associated with Jewish scholars and writers, including Yehuda Bauer, Arthur A. Cohen, Lucy Dawidowicz, Emil Fackenheim, Sir Martin Gilbert, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Steven Katz, Lawrence Langer, Deborah Lipstadt, and Cynthia Ozick, who argue that the Holocaust was unique in two ways. (1) It was distinguished by the Nazi intention of totally eradicating the Jewish people, who were in this respect its unique victims—in Ozick's words, "the purpose and whole reason for it"—and (2) historically it was without precedent.L’Univers concentrationnaire
"Concentrationary universe": French postwar term (coined by David Rousset) to denote the entire system of destruction—expulsion, Einsatzgruppen,
ghettoization, transport, Lagers, gas chambers, crematoria, etc.Untermensch
German: "subhuman." A member of an "inferior race" in Nazi ideology.
Vernichtungslager
Literally, "annihilation camp." There were six: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno (near Lodz, it began functioning on December 8, 1941), Belzec (near Lublin, it became operational in February 1942), Sobibór (construction on which began in March 1942), and the labor camps Majdanek and Treblinka, which were transformed into killing centers in the first half of 1942.
Volksdeutsche
German-speaking minority in a country outside Germany.
"Folk community": the Nazi term for a "racially pure" German nation.
Vorarbeiter
The Kapo placed in charge of all the work details.
"Armed
SS": formed in May 1939, it incorporated the Totenkopfverbände and the military arm of the SS. It was separate from—not under command of—the Wehrmacht. At its height it consisted of forty divisions.The January 20, 1942, meeting of 15 Nazi officials (including Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann) in the Berlin suburb of Grossen-Wannsee for the purpose of planning the
Endlösung. (Go to the Wannsee Protocol.)War Refugee Board
U.S. board consisting of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War created on January 22, 1944, by President Roosevelt to take action for the rescue of "as many as possible" civilian victims of Nazi terror.
Wasser
German: "water."
German: literally, "military or defense power." Term referring to Germany’s military forces from 1935 to 1945. From 1921 to 1935 the forces were known as the Reichswehr.
Wirtschafts- und Vermaltungshauptamt
(Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS.) Created in February 1942, it was responsible for the commercial and industrial enterprises of the SS as well as administration of the camp system.Yishuv
Hebrew: "settlement, community." Term for the Jewish community in Palestine between 1882 and 1948.
Jewish Scientific Institute, a research center founded in Vilna in 1925.
Yom Kippur
The Jewish day of atonement, which comes early in the fall. The holiest day of the Jewish year, it is a fast day.
Zahngold
Gold extracted from the teeth of
Häftlinge.Zelt
Hut. (Plural: zelte.)
Zionism
The 19th- and 20th-century Jewish movement to resettle Palestine.
"Cyclone B": trade name for prussic acid. Originally a disinfectant, it was the gas used to murder Jews in the
Lagers starting in September 1941.