A Dictionary That Enlarges Your Holocaust Vocabulary

A Jewish boy wearing the compulsory Star of David. Prague, Czechoslovakia, between September 1941 and December 1944.

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• Death marchesDeath marches were used by the Nazis’ during World War II. They

were made for Jews or different races or religions that Nazis’ say that does

not fit in their perfect race, to march till those people died. Many of those

people in these marches would die from starvation, freezing to death, or

exhaustion. Death marches began in 1941. Many of them in 1942 included

Jews being marched from small ghettos to death camps. One death march

that happened during World War II was before Auschwitz-Birkeneau was

liberated. The march was in January 1945, when 66,000 prisoners were

forced to march along the lines west of Wodzislaw. About one-fourth of these

people died in this march. During the final winter of Nazi rule, 59 different

death marches happened in various concentration camps. “Death Marches”. The Holocaust. 1997. Print.

Prisoners head south on a death march from the Dachau concentration camp. Gruenwald, Germany, April 29, 1945.

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•Death Marches

•Dr. josef Mengele (1911-1979)

Dr. Josef Mengele was a German doctor in Auschwitz from 1943 to 1944 during World War II. He was born in the year 1911 and joined the Nazi Party in 1937. Mengele was in the Waffen S.S. Medical Corps in 1940. During his time at Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele decided on who may die or live. The ones who were picked to die were based off of being “unfit for work” and were killed in gas chambers. Dr. Mengele also did various medical experiments on defenseless inmates, babies, dwarfs, and twins. He would use forcible sterilization, amputations and injections of lethal substances. In January 1945, Josef Mengele evacuated from Auschwitz and “disappeared”. Later, Dr. Mengele was granted Political Asylum of Argentina in 1949. When he heard, in 1959, that Germans had a warrant to arrest him, he fled to Brazil. In 1979, a man named Wolfgang Gerhard died because of a swimming accident. Later in 1985, forensic specialist identified the body of Wolfgang Gerhard to be Josef Mengele’s corpse.

“Mengele, Josef”. The Holocaust. 1997. Print.

Portrait of Josef Mengelehttp://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1041712

•Dr. Josef Mengele

•gypsies

“Gypsies”. The Holocaust. 1997. Print. “Gypsies”. Learning About the Holocaust. 2001. Print.

Gypsies were one of the many victims hurt by the Nazis during World War II. They originate from India and have lived in Europe since the 15th century. There were at least 936,000 Gypsies in Nazi-occupied territories. Probably more than 220,000 were murdered in this war. In World War II, Gypsies were singled out by the persecution of the Nazi regime. Nazis accused Gypsies for stealing and being dishonest. They saw them as work-shy and alien individuals that were not fit for a new society. In 1937, Germany categorized 90% of Gypsies to be Mischlinge (mixed-race Gypsy). On July 31, 1944, a Gypsy camp killed everyone by using the gas chambers.

Thousands of Gypsies were departed to camps at Bergenbelsen, Buchenwald, Pachau, Mauthausen, and Ravenbrück. Many people think the Jews were the only ones being discriminated against during World War II, but there were many others and one of these groups was the Gypsies.

Roma (Gypsies) near Uzhgorod, Slovakia. Czechoslovakia, 1938.

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•Gypsies

•Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass)

Mara, Wil. Perspectives on Kristallnacht. Tarryton: Marshall Cavedish Corporation, 2010. Print.

At first, Kristallnacht seemed like a minor accident during the Holocaust. The event began with a man named Herschel Grynszpan whose anger was brewing inside. His anger peeked when his sister, Bertie, on November 3, 1938, sent him a letter saying that she left Germany near the end of October and currently was being accompanied by a Schupo officer. Finally, on November 7, 1938, Herschel bought a gun and went to Vom Roth. He shot the man five times for the 12,000 persecuted Jews. After this, Hitler’s hatred toward Jews raised to the point when, on November 8th, he gave orders to attack Hesse and Magdeburg. They began to take Jews to be beaten, looted their homes or businesses, and burned down their synagogues. On November 9th and 10th, attacks began to engage in action to every Jewish sector in the country.

Violence lasted several days in some areas. In the end, about 100 Jews were murdered and 30,000 were arrested. This was a horrible act in the Holocaust, but was not the end for suffering of Jews.

Synagogue destroyed during Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"). Dortmund, Germany, November 1938.

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• kristallnacht

•Nuremberg Trial

Fireside, Harvey. The Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Trial. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2000. Print.

Rice Jr, Earle. The Nuremberg Trials. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1997, Print.

“Nuremberg Trial”. The Holocaust. 1997. Print.

The Nuremberg Trial was a major postwar trial after World War II. This was the first time that leaders were tried in court. The trial began on October 18, 1945, in Berlin, but later moved to Nuremberg on November 20, 1945. In the trial, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) conducted the trial. There were eight judges, two from each of these countries: America, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Crimes charged to the defendants were “Crimes Against Peace”, “War Crimes”, and “Crimes Against Humanity”. They were given a fair trial, not based on their horrible crimes. Each country would do one of these crimes one at a time. On December 4, 1945, the British had to do “Crimes Against Peace”.

•Nuremberg trialAfter this, on January 17, 1946, France began their segment based off the “Crimes Against Humanity”. IN the Nuremberg Trial, 22 were tried, 12 were put to death, 4 had life imprisonment, 3 were acquitted, and others were imprisoned for a couple years. The case ended on October 1, 1946. The Nuremberg Trial was the first trial in history to cover so much detail.

IMT Defendants and Defense Attorneys (Dec. 10, 1945)

http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=overview

•Oskar schindler

Roberts, Jeremy. “Oskar Schindler Righteous Gentile”. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc, 2000. Print.

Oskar Schindler was an amazing person during the Holocaust. He saved over 1,100 Jews in World War II. Schindler was a playboy and a womanizer who was often called bon vivant, scoundrel, and slime. Oskar was born on April 18, 1908 in Zwittau, Czechoslovakia. He loved nice cars and to party as a young man. He joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s. Schindler married Emilie Pelzl, but later cheated many times. In 1939, Jews were kicked out of their homes and put into a ghetto in Krakow. 15,000 had to work or they would be killed. Oskar made the Deutsche Emalenwaren Frank (DEF) make field kits, dishes, and utensils. He hired Jews because they were cheap labor. Later, Jews had to leave when Plaszów opened, in 1943, near Krakow. German’s liquidated the Jewish ghetto, moving them. Schindler then opened a “sub camp” with better work conditions.

•Oskar SchindlerIn 1994, Plazów closes when Schindler writes his famous list and moves the factory with the Jews to Brinnlitz. Finally, in 1945, he saves the Jews and has to run away with his wife because he was a Nazi. Later, in 1963, he was honored to be a righteous man who rescues other effects to help the Jews. Schindler’s efforts did help effect the Holocaust.

Oskar Schindler in Paris in 1949

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