Glossary of Terms

Twenty-six nations led by Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union that fought against the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies) during World War II.

Polish words for Home Army. A nationalist partisan group that fought the Nazis. Many intentionally hunted down and killed Jewish partisans because of their fierce antisemitic beliefs.

An all Jewish partisan unit and family camp begun by the Tuvia Bielski and his brothers from Stankiewicze, in western Belorussia. Unlike most partisan groups, they were not focused on fighting the Nazis, but freeing as many Jews as possible. Their group eventually saved grew to 1,200 Jews.

Nazi camps built for the mass killing of Jews and others (e.g. Gypsies, Russian prisoners-of-war, ill Allied prisoners). These included Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. All were located in occupied Poland.

Yiddish word meaning gall, brazenness, audacity, daring. An example often given is: "A boy is on trial for murdering his parents, and he begs of the judge leniency because he is an orphan."

Prison camps for Jews and other “enemies of the state”, constructed by the Germans in occupied Europe during World War II. Over 100 camps were in operation during the war.

A prison camp where thousands of Jews died, either from systematic extermination, as at Auschwitz-Berkenau, or from starvation and disease, as at Dachau.

Same as death camps. Nazi prison camps designed with the express purpose of the systematic, mass murder of Jews through the use of lethal gas. Jews died at six camps, all located in occupied Poland, as did tens of thousands of Poles, Gypsies, Russians and others.

Forged or altered identification documents which Jews and other racial minorities used to avoid arrest and/or deportation by passing as Christians. Couriers also used falsified papers to travel freely within Nazi occupied Europe.

Informal and formal groups comprised of Jewish men, women, and children who fled to the forests of Eastern Europe to escape Nazi persecution. Many in these groups could not join partisan groups because they were too young, old or weak to fight. The main purpose of these groups was to provide refuge to persecuted Jews.

The collaborationist French army forces that implemented antisemitic policies in occupied France.

A term used to describe a non-Jewish person.

The secret state police of Hitler’s Third Reich. Their tyrannical methods included mass arrests, executions and torture.

The sudden forced removal of Jews from the ghettos, by Nazi troops and their collaborators. The liquidation of a ghetto meant the final, deportation of its remaining Jews to Nazi camps.

A concentration and extermination camp located near Lublin, Poland. Originally built as a detention center for prisoners of war, it was converted to a death camp in 1942. At Majdanek, approximately 125,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers, of which 100,000 are thought to have been Polish.

The common name of the National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP a right-wing, nationalistic, antisemitic political party that believed in the natural superiority of the German “race”. Aryans were the master race. Headed by Adolf Hitler, the Nazis came into power in Germany in 1933 and sought to strengthen their empire, known as the Third Reich, by enslaving and annihilating racially "inferior" peoples including Slavs, Gypsies and especially Jews.

Code name for Germany's invasion of Soviet territories in the summer of 1941.

Partisan and resister activity, such as hit and run guerilla attacks, sabotage, and armed revolts in the camps and ghettos.

Any act of disobedience towards the Nazis, including armed ghetto uprisings, acts of sabotage, or maintaining life and dignity by smuggling food into the ghettos, praying, and lighting Sabbath candles.

Comprised of more than one million individuals, the Soviets had the largest number of partisans in Europe. Many units were located in the dense forests of Eastern Europe.

An ideology that places importance on general welfare rather than on individualism, on co-operation rather than on competition, and on laborers rather than on industrial or political leaders and structures.

An often fatal infectious disease carried by lice. Symptoms are headache, fever, chills, exhaustion, and rash. Many partisans died from outbreaks of typhus.

During the 1930s, most Ukrainian nationalists came to support the Nazis as the force most likely to "liberate" the Ukraine from the USSR. When Nazi Germany conquered Poland in September 1939, they set up training camps for Ukrainian nationalists to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union. These Nazi supporters were often fiercely antisemitic.

Slave labor camps where Jews, under extreme and horrible conditions, were forced to work for the German war effort.

In September 1941, German Jews, six and older were required to wear a yellow patch depicting the Star of David on the left side of their chest. The patches were required to be “fist-sized” and to bear the inscription, “Jude”.