Aden: former Middle Eastern British colony, now part of Yemen
Aryan: in Nazi ideology, the pure, superior Germanic race
Austerlitz: Parisian railroad station for eastbound trains. Austerlitz was the name of a Czech city.
Babylonian captivity: Babylonians destroyed the first temple in Jerusalem in 86 B.C.E. and exiled the Jews to Babylonia.
Boche or bosche: WWI derogatory French slang for a German, usually a soldier
Cabbala: Jewish mysticism, including numerology
Charnel house: a building used to house corpses and bones
Concentration camp: camps that were primarily used for slave labor, holding camps or transit camps
Death camp: camps dedicated to the efficient murder of Jews and other victims; e.g. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmo, Madjanek, Sobibor, Treblinka. The term was also used for concentration camps where thousands died of starvation and disease.
Death’s head: skull insignia for S.S. brigades working in concentration camps
Fascism: a system of government with centralized authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship and usually a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism
Gestapo: German acronym for the German Secret State Police, part of the SS notorious for terrorism against enemies of the state
Ghetto: the confinement of Jews in a set-apart area of a city. The first exclusively Jewish ghetto was in Venice in 1516.
Gypsy: pejorative term for Roma or Romany, an ethnic group with roots in India that suffered large losses in the Holocaust
Hasidism: movement of Orthodox Judaism with strong mystical and emotional elements.
Himmler, Heinrich (1900–1945): head of SS and principal planner of Jews’ total extermination
Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945): dictator of Germany, 1933–1945
Horthy, Admiral Miklos (1868–1957): regent of Hungary, 1920–1944, who was forced by the Nazis to relinquish power to the Nylias Hungarian Fascist party after Nazi invasion
Job: Biblical figure who has come to symbolize suffering
Kaddish: a prayer in Aramaic praising God. The mourner’s Kaddish is said for the dead.
Kapo: camp prisoner forced to oversee other prisoners
Lazarus: a man described in the Books of John and Luke as having been raised from the dead by Jesus
Los: German for “Go on!”
Maimonides (1135–1204): Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher
Mengele, Dr. Josef (1911–1978): Auschwitz physician notorious for so-called medical experiments performed on inmates, especially twins and dwarves
Messiah: Greek translation of Hebrew Mashiach, the anointed one
Musulman: German for Muslim. Camp slang for a prisoner who is too weak to walk, work or stand, and therefore marked for death. Believed to derive from prisoner’s resemblance to a Muslim in prayer.
Nyilas party: Hungarian for Arrow Cross, a fascist anti-Semitic party that assumed power in late 1944 and assisted the SS in deportations of Jews
Passover: in Hebrew, Pesach. Greek word for the celebration of the exodus of Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.
Pentecost: in Hebrew, Shavuot, the celebration of the giving of the Torah
Phylacteries: in Hebrew, tefillin. Greek word for two black leather cubes worn during daily morning prayer that contain verses from the Torah.
Rosh Hashana: Jewish New Year
SS: abbreviation of Schutzstaffel (Defense Protective Units). Notorious for implementing European Jews’ extermination.
Spanish Inquisition: brutal campaign by Roman Catholic church to punish nonbelievers including Jews and Muslims
Synagogue: a Jewish house of worship and study
Talmud: the most important compilation of Jewish oral tradition
Temple: holiest place in Judaism, located in Jerusalem. Biblically ordained sacrifices were performed here. Built and destroyed twice.
Yellow star: Nazis forced Jews to wear a cloth badge with Jew written in the center of a yellow six-pointed star.
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement. Holiest day of Jewish year when Jews fast and pray for forgiveness for their sins.
Zionism: political movement advocating the establishment of a Jewish state
Zohar: from the Hebrew meaning light or splendor. One of the major works of the Cabbala.
Content last updated: April 30, 2002
