Vocabulary

• Allies--During World War II, these were the 49 nations opposed to the Axis countries, and included the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France.

• Anti-Semitism--Discrimination and persecution of Jewish people.

• Axis nations--During World War II, these included Germany, Italy, and Japan, and others, which fought against the Allies.

• Black market--The illegal buying and selling of goods in violation of official controls.

• Concentration camps--Guarded prison camps created by the Nazis for political and other prisoners. It was to these camps that Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and others considered "asocial" were taken. It was official Nazi policy to eliminate all the Jewish people by sending them to the death camps where huge numbers were starved to death, succumbed to disease, or were murdered.

• D-day--The day of the Allied invasion of Europe on the coast of France: June 6, 1944.

• Final Solution"--Hitler's plan to kill all the Jews in Europe--the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

• Genocide--The intentional and systematic destruction of a religious, racial, national, or ethnic group.

• Gestapo--The state secret police of Nazi Germany. This is a shortened reference for the title Geheime Staats Polizei meaning Secret State Police in English. The Gestapo was a ruthless police intelligence agency with paid informants and secret operations.

• Gypsies--A nomadic group of people in Europe. They came to Europe in the 1400s, probably from India and were persecuted extensively. It is believed that the Nazis killed some 500,000 Gypsies in the Holocaust.

• Hero--A man or woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities.

• Holocaust--From the Greek holokaustos, or the Latin holokauston, meaning "burnt whole;" as in the case of a great fire in which victims are sacrificed. It has come to symbolize the murder of 6 million Jews and others by the Nazis.

• Jewish Badge--One of a number of symbols of Jewish identity that the Nazis required Jews to wear as a part of their campaign of hatred. In the Netherlands, Jews such as the Frank family were required to wear a yellow six-pointed star.

• Kristallnacht (Crystal Night)--A German word for "Night of the Broken Glass" (pronounced "crystal-knocked). A night of rioting in Germany, November 9, 1938, when Jewish property was destroyed and many Jews were killed. This was the beginning of the Nazi campaign to annihilate the Jews.

• Nazis--Members of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party, a political party started in Germany that was based on hate, prejudice and rule by threat of violence. From the German Nazionalsozialist.

• Persecution--Bullying and ill-treatment, especially because of race or religion.

• Reich--The German word for "empire" pronounced to rhyme with "bike." The Nazi's hoped to establish a Greater German Reich.

• SS--Abbreviation for the German word Schutzstaffel (Defense Protective Units). SS troops fought on the battlefield, but were best known for carrying out the campaign against the Jewish people of Europe.

• Star of David--A six-pointed star traditionally used by Jewish people as a symbol of cultural identity. The star can be made by placing two opposing isosceles triangles over each other.

• Typhus--A serious illness often brought on by bad diet and dirty living conditions. Anne Frank and her sister Margot may have died from Typhus.