Glossary

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.