Definitions

Definitions

Here are definitions of core terms used in our resources.

For more definitions please visit the Wiener Library’s excellent resource at

www.holocaustexplained.org

THE HOLOCAUST: The German Government’s attempt, in the 1930s and 40s, to kill all the Jews of Europe. This resulted in the murder of six million people, including one and a half million children. They also enslaved and murdered millions of other groups within society – including Roma and Sinti, people with physical and mental disabilities, non-Jewish Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents and homosexuals.


THE NAZI PARTY: The political party that were in power in Germany from 1933 – 1945, led by Adolf Hitler. They believed that people who were Aryan (white skin, fair hair, blue eyes) were “racially superior” to all others. Over this period, the Nazi-German State’s policy was to get rid of “racially inferior” groups from society, step by step…

taking away their rights as citizens

expelling them from their homes (see “ghettos” below)

systematically murdering them (see “camps” below)

DISCRIMINATION: Treating people unfairly because of who they are and what they believe.


ANTISEMITISM: A specific form of anti-Jewish Racism that expresses hatred towards Jews.  This can be verbal racist abuse or the use of stereotyping imagery. It can also include racist graffiti on synagogues and other property connected to the Jewish Community.


GHETTOS: A small isolated area in a town or city where vast numbers of displaced Jews were forced to live, and not allowed to leave.


CAMPS: Places specifically built by the Nazis to carry out their inhumane policies towards Jews and other “racially inferior” groups. They were controlled by the SS, a Nazi military organisation in charge of implementing their party’s brutal racist policies. They broadly fall into two categories –

CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Where Jews, and other discriminated groups, were imprisoned, used as slave-labour, kept in unsanitary conditions and extremely under-nourished. Inmates were “worked to death” and eventually murdered in gas chambers when considered to be of no more economic value.

EXTERMINATION/DEATH CAMPS: Where Jews, and other discriminated groups, were sent in order to be murdered. These murders were usually carried out within hours of the victims arrivals.

Note – many camps, such as Auschwitz, functioned as both Concentration and Death Camps.


GENOCIDE: This is a term that refers to crimes against humanity, intended to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.


BYSTANDER: An onlooker or eye witness. We learn about events from a variety of standpoints - sometimes we may actually witness them, other times we may only hear about them. In both cases we choose whether to react or not. Choice is central to the bystander concept. To some extent we are all bystanders. Those who choose to react are ACTIVE BYSTANDERS or those who choose not to are PASSIVE BYSTANDERS.


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