Appendix B: Terms – Glossary
Affidavit in Lieu of Passport
Many refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied territories left their countries illegally without passports, papers or identity cards. Local consuls and diplomats could issue an affidavit in lieu of passport as a means of providing refugees with a document that could legally allow them to cross international borders.
Aliya
Hebrew: “Ascend.” Immigration of Jews to Palestine.
Aliya Bet
Illegal Immigration to Palestine (Israel). Organized by the Irgun and Haganah during the British Mandate period. Especially active in 1934-1948. Chartered and organized numerous ships to Palestine.
Allies (United Nations)
Nations who fought against axis powers. They included the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, British India, Soviet Union.
Anschluss
German: “Annexation”; German annexation of Austria by Germany on March 13, 1938. It was accomplished by popular vote. It put approximately 189,000 Austrian Jews under German rule. Many thousands fled to Southern France, especially after the Kristallnacht action of November 10, 1938.
Anti-Semitism
Hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews.
Armée Juive
Jewish Army. Founded by Abraham Polonski and Lucien Lubin in France in 1942.
Armistice Commission
The Armistice Commission located in Wiesbaden negotiated the Pence Treaty between Germany and France in 1940. It was composed of German and French military, diplomats and economic specialists.
Arrondissement
Districts in Paris
Article XIX
Clause of the German-French Armistice agreement of June 1940. Stipulated that the French were obliged to “surrender on demand” German nationals on French soil to the German occupying government.
Aryan Papers Documents
Identification showing one was not Jewish. Holder could avoid arrest, detainment and deportation.
Aryanization
Expropriation – confiscation of Jewish property, businesses and money in Germany and German-occupied Europe. Under these laws and the French Statut des Juifs, more than 42,000 Jewish businesses and properties were confiscated in France.
Ashkenazim
Jews of European ancestry. The Holocaust of the Second World War decimated the Ashkenazim, affecting almost every Jewish family. It is estimated that in the 11th century Ashkenazi Jews composed three percent of the world's total Jewish population, while an estimate made in 1930 (near the population's peak) had them as 92 percent of the world's Jews. Immediately prior to the Holocaust, the number of Jews in the world stood at approximately 16.7 million. Statistical figures vary for the contemporary demography of Ashkenazi Jews, ranging from 10 million to 11.2 million
Attaché
In diplomacy, an attaché is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency.
Auschwitz (G.); Oswiecim (P.)
Nazi death camps in Poland. Located near Krakow. Also called Auchwitz-Birkenau. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The death toll includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival).
Auschwitz Protocols
Vrba-Wetzler Report. Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1943. They successfully escaped to Slovakia, where they prepared an elaborate report of the murder of Jews. The report was translated into numerous languages and sent around the world.
Axis
Political and military alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan. It also included Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland and Slovakia.
Baptismal Certificate
Proof document that one was baptised and thus Christian. A Jew holding one might be spared from arrest and deportion.
Beitar Revisionist
Jewish political party
Belzec
Nazi Death camp in Lublin District of the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland. Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec.
Beriha
Hebrew: “Flight”
Camoufles
French: “Sub”; A French term for Jews in hiding (referring to “submarine”). Jews in France who posed as Aryans in order to avoid arrest and deportation. There were elaborate networks to hide these Jews and provide them with false documents.
Caritas
Certificate of Exemption
Certificate of Good Conduct
Document required by goverments in order to obtain travel papers, such as visas and passports
Chantiers de la Jeunesse
Youth camps
Chargé d’Affaires
A chargé d'affaires, often shortened to chargé and sometimes to charge-D, is a diplomat who served as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador. The term is French for "charged with matters".
Chelmno (P.); Kulmhof (G.)
Nazi death camp located 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of Łódź, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland. The camp, which was specifically intended for no other purpose than mass murder.
Collaboration, collaborator
Cooperation of French citizens and German occupying forces. Collaboration between French officials or private citizens and the Nazi government enabled them to Aryanize Jewish businesses, enforce antisemitic laws, and arrest and deport Jews and other enemies of the Nazis to the concentration and death camps.
Comité
Committee
Concordat
A concordat is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both, i.e. the recognition and privileges of the Catholic Church in a particular country and with secular matters that impact on church interests.
Conseil d’Etat
Council of State
Consistoire (F.)
French: Consistory, council
Consul
A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the two countries.
A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another, but both have a form of immunity.
Consul General
A consul of the highest rank is termed a consul-general, and is appointed to a consulate-general. There are typically one or more deputy consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents working under the consul-general. A country may appoint more than one consul-general to another nation.
Consulate
The consulate is a diplomatic mission, the office of a consul and is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy. Consulates, are smaller diplomatic missions which are normally located in major cities of the receiving state (but can be located in the capital, usually when the sending country has no embassy in the state).
Converting to Christianity
Jews coverted to Christianity to a avoid persecution, or to avoid arrest and deportation. See baptismal certificates. Catholic and Protestant leaders aided in this to protect Jews.
Courier
Individual who carried information, and documents.
Cremieux Decree
Law passed October 1870 making Algerian Jews citizens of France. The Vichy government reversed the law in 1940.
Death camp
The Nazi government built six camps that were used as killing centers for Jews and others. Jews from France were deported to three of these camps: Sobibor, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. 75,000 Jews from France were murdered in these camps.
DELASEM
Delegazione de Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei (Delegation for the Assistance of Immigrants). Jewish rescue and relief agency founded in Italy in December 1939. It operated in France and throughout Italy until September 1943.
Denaturalization
Removal of citizenship.
Department of Information and Propaganda for Jewish Questions
The Institut d'étude des questions juives (IEQJ) (Institute for the Study of Jewish Questions) was an anti-Semitic propaganda organization created in France under the German occupation during World War II, with the support of the Propagandastaffel (German Propaganda Office) and under the regulation of the Gestapo.
Deportation
Forced removal of Jews to concentration camps or murder centers
Deportation center
Transit camp. Place from which Jews and others were sent to concentration or death camps.
Deutsche Reichsbahn
German: German State Railroad. Responsible for transporting deportees to the death camps in Poland. 77 deportation trains left France between 1941-1944.
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one or more other States or international organizations.
The main functions of diplomats are: representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending State; initiation and facilitation of strategic agreements; treaties and conventions; promotion of information; trade and commerce; and friendly relations.
Displaced Person (DP)
Displaced persons camps in post-World War II Europe were established in Germany, Austria, and Italy, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the former inmates of the Nazi German concentration camps. A "displaced persons camp" is a temporary facility for displaced persons, whether refugees or internally displaced persons. Two years after the end of World War II in Europe, some 850,000 people lived in displaced persons camps across Europe.
Distribution center
Mostly located in occupied France, these centers held interned Jews and others prior to deportation. Centers were run by Vichy officials.
Drancy
Transit camp located in suburb of Paris, established in 1940. 74,000 Jews in France were deported to Auschwitz from this camp. 11,000 were children. 5,000 Jews were from Belgium. Drancy was a French camp until July 1943.
Dror
Hebrew: “Freedom”; Zionist Youth Group part of Labor Movement
Embassy (see also Legation)
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from one state or an organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving state. In practice, the phrase diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the embassy, which is the main office of a country's diplomatic representatives to another country; this is usually, but not necessarily, in the receiving state's capital city. Consulates, on the other hand, are smaller diplomatic missions which are normally located in major cities of the receiving state (but can be located in the capital, usually when the sending country has no embassy in the state). As well as being a diplomatic mission to the country in which it is situated, it may also be a non-resident permanent mission to one or more other countries. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies
Emergency visa
Also “unblocked visa.” The US State Department authorized consuls in France to issue a limited number of visas outside of the US quota system. Several hundred of these special visas were issued to artists, writers, intellectuals trapped in Southern France, particularly in Marseilles.
Emmissary
Alternate title for the post or rank of ambassador.
Épuration
French: “Purge” – Postwar trials of collaborators in France. Between 1945-1946, 39,000 trials for collaborators were held in France.
Evacués
Evacuees
Evian Conference
Conference held in the French resort town of Evian, July 6-15, 1938. It was attended by 33 countries. Its purpose was to resolve the refugee crisis that resulted from the German annexation of Austria and thousands of Jews fleeing from Germany and Czechoslovakia. Virtually nothing of substance was accomplished at this conference, as no countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees.
Final Solution
Endlösing der Judenfrage in Europa; German: “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in Europe.”
Flight Tax
see Reichsfluchtsteuer
Forced labor
More than 700,000 French people were impressed by the German government to work for the Nazi war industries.
Foreign Minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations.
Fraternité
French: Brotherhood. Pro-Jewish newspaper published in Southern France. Cooperated with MNCR to fight anti-Semitism and advocated helping Jews to avoid deportation.
Free French
French armed forces under General Charles de Gaulle. Fought for the liberation of France.
French Forces of the Interior (EFI)
The French Forces of the Interior (French: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) refers to French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II.
Gendarmerie
French: constables, French police. Many collaborated with German occupying forces to enforce antisemitic policy and aid in round-ups and deportations.
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for humanitarian treatment in war.
Gestapo
German: Geheime Staatspolizei; German State Secret Police. Headed by SS General Heinrich Mueller. IVB4 was a department of the Gestapo.
Ghetto
During the Holocaust, more than 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established to hold Jewish populations, with the goal of exploiting and killing the Jews as part of the Final Solution.
La Grande Rafle
French: The Grand Roundup. 12,884 Jews, 4,000 of them children, were arrested in the Paris area on July 16-17, 1942. Most were sent to the Auschwitz death camp, where they were murdered on arrival.
Greater Reich
Germany and Austria after its annexation in 1938.
Groupments de Travailleurs Étranges (GTE)
Labor battalions authorized by Vichy law to work prisoners or war. Supervised by the French Ministry of Industrial Production and Labor. Jews and former Spanish Republican soldiers were impressed into these foreign labor units.
Hagana
Underground/clandestine Jewish Army from Palestine.
Hakhshara
Hebrew: “Training”; agricultural training farm. Several of these farms were located in Southern France.
Hashomer Hatzair
Hebrew: “Young Guard”; Socialist-Zionist Youth Movement; organized to help young Jews train for life on collective farms (kibbutzim) in Palestine (Israel); many became partisans and rescuers during the war.
Hasidei Umot Ha’Olam (H.)
Righteous Among the Nations; Righteous Person. This honorary title is awarded to non-Jews by the State of Isreal who rescued Jews during the holocaust.
He Halutz (Halutzim; H.)
Hebrew: “Pioneer.” Jewish youth organization that helped prepare young Jews for immigration to Palestine.
Holocaust (Greek)
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
Holy See
See of Rome, is the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, known as the pope, which includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome with universal ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the worldwide Catholic Church.
Immigration Quota
The United States imposed limitations on immigration after 1924. Strict quotas were enforced by the State Department.
Institute for the Study of Jewish Problems, Paris, France
International Brigades
Volunteers from all over the world who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Many were Jewish.
Internment camps
Established in 1939 in France to detain Spanish Republican soldiers and refugee aliens. Run by French officials and police forces.
Irgun
Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), Palestine
“Israel”
Name male Jews were forced to use on German and Austian identification papers and documents.
IVB4
Gestapo and SS “Jewish Office,” headquartered in Berlin, in charge of arrest and deportation of Jews in France and other occupied countries. Headed by SS Colonel Adolph Eichmann, his deputies were Dieter Wisliceny and Major Alois Brunner.
“J,” Jude, Juif, Jew
Stood for Juif (Jew). Stamped on German, Austrian and Czech passports.
J’Accuse
French: “I Accuse”; pro-Jewish newspaper published in Paris. Cooperated with MNCR to fight anti-Semitism and advocated helping Jews to avoid deportation.
Jewish Agency
Jewish Agency for Palestine. Established in 1921 to establish Jewish self rule in the British Mandate of Palestine. It set up Palestine Offices to promote immigration to Palestine.
Jewish Badge
After June 7, 1942, French Jews in the northern occupied zone were forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word “Juif.”
Judenrat
Department of Jewish Affairs in RSHA office, Paris. Headed by SS Hauptsturmführer Theodore Dannecker (Bureau IVB4). Responsible for planning and implementing anti-Jewish actions and deportations.
Juif
French: Jew. In France, Jews had their papers and documents stamped with the word “Juif” in large red letters.
Kennkarte (G.)
Identificatin card or document.
Kibbutz (H.)
Collective farm or factory community in Palestine, later Israel.
KZ (Katzet)
Konzentrationslager (G.); concentration camp. There were thousands of these camps throughout Nazi occupied Europe.
Kundt Commission
Headed by German diplomat Dr. Kundt, the Commission was a detachment of Gestapo and German officials that searched French internment camps for those wanted by the German government. They arrested 800 persons.
Landsmann (G., Y.)
Countryman
Landsmannschaften (G.)
Jewish mutual aid society.
League of Nations
The League of Nations, (French: Société des Nations, was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Founded on 10 January 1920 following the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War, it ceased operations on 20 April 1946
Legation
A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legations were originally the most common form of diplomatic mission.
Maccabi
Jewish youth organization. Helped prepare young Jews for immigration to Palestine.
Marchandeau Law
Loi Marchandeau. A French law passed in 1881 that outlawed press attacks “toward a group of persons who belong by origin to a particular race or religion when it intended to arouse hatred among citizens or residents. This law was repealed by the Vichy government on August 27, 1940. This allowed virulent antisemitic attacks on the Jews in France.
Milice
French: Militia. French paramilitary force of 30,000 formed by Vichy government in 1943. Led by Joseph Darnand and Paul Touvier. Participated in round up and deportation of Jews.
Militärbefehlshaber im Frankreich
German: Military Command in France; MBF. Headed by General Otto von Stülpnagel, 1940 and Karl Heinrich von Stülpnagel 1942-1944. The civil administrative director was SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Werner T. Best, 1940-1942.
Mischling
Mischling (German; lit. "mixling"; plural: Mischlinge) was a pejorative legal term used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of both Aryan (Nazi pseudo-scientific delineation for Germanic) and Jewish ancestry as codified in the Nuremburg racial laws of 1935.
Mossad le Aliya Bet
Jewish underground organization, often operated illegally to smuggle Jews from Europe to Palestine.
Nansen Passport
Nansen passports, originally and officially stateless persons passports, were internationally recognized refugee travel documents from 1922 to 1938, first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees. They quickly became known as "Nansen passports" for their promoter, the Norwegian statesman and polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.
Nazi, Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945, that created and supported the ideology of Nazism.
Numerus Clausus
Quota. In France, quota systems were used to exclude Jews from professions, businesses and schools.
Nunciature (I.)
An apostolic nunciature is a top-level diplomatic mission of the Holy See, equivalent to an embassy. However, it does not issue visas, nor does it have consulates.
The head of the Apostolic Nunciature is called a nuncio, an ecclesiastical diplomatic title. A papal nuncio (officially known as an Apostolic nuncio) is a permanent diplomatic representative (head of diplomatic mission) of the Holy See to a state.
Nuncio
An apostolic nuncio (also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international organization. A nuncio is appointed by and represents the Holy See, and is the head of the diplomatic mission, called an Apostolic Nunciature, which is the equivalent of an embassy. The Holy See is legally distinct from the Vatican City or the Catholic Church
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze, were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany beginning on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag. Over the next years, an additional 13 supplementary laws were promulgated that further marginalised the Jewish community in Germany. Axis allies enacted these laws against Jews.
Occupied Zone
Area occupied by the German Army and civil government. This comprised most of Northern France and the border along Spain.
Palastina Amt
Palestine Office. Palestine Offices, located throughout Europe (usually in capitols), issued Palestine Certificates. These were staffed by Jewish volunteers from Palestine.
Palestine
From 1880 large-scale Jewish immigration began here, almost entirely from Europe, based on an explicitly Zionist ideology. The government of Great Britain publicly supported Zionism during World War I with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Jews fled the holocaust to British Palestine.
Palestine Certificates
A certificate issued by the Yishuv, and authorized by the British mandatory government, that allowed Jews in Europe to immigrate legally to Palestine.
Partisans
Resistance fighters against German occupying forces.
Passeur (F.)
French word for guide. These were individuals who guided refugees across international borders.
Passport
Official document issued by a country of origin for an individual to travel between countries.
Pogrom (Ru.)
“Attack”
Police Certificate
Document needed by a refugee inorder to otain visas or other travel documents.
Police for Jewish Affairs (PQJ)
Police for Jewish Affairs [fr] (PQJ) was officially created by a government decree by Pucheu in October 1941 together with the Anti-Communist Police Service.
POW
Prisoner of War
Quisling
Collaborator, traitor. An individual who aids or helps an opposing or occupying force.
Rafle (G.)
Roundup.
Ration card, ration book
Needed to purchase food or other vital nessesities. There were often sold on the black market or forged.
Refoulment
Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law that forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which they would be in likely danger of persecution based on "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".
Reich Security Division (RSHA)
German: Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Reich Security Main Office. Combined offices of Nazi Gestapo (Secret Police), Security Service (SD) and Police (SIPO). Headed by SS General Reinhard Heydrich and later Ernst Kaltenbrunner. It coordinated the final solution for the murder of Jews of Europe and millions of others. In France, the RSHA office was headed by SS Obersturmführer Helmut Knochen. He was responsible to Himmler and the SS office in Berlin. Other RSHA officers were SS-Sturmbannführers Herbert Martin Hagen and Kurt Liska, SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodore Dannecker. Coordinated the murder of more than 75,000 Jews in France.
Reichsfluchtsteuer, The Reich Flight
The Reich Flight Tax was a capital control law implemented in order to stem capital flight from the Weimar Republic. The law was created through decree in 1931 by Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg. The Reich Flight Tax was assessed upon departure from the individual's German domicile.
During the Third Reich, the use of the Reich Flight Tax shifted away from dissuading wealthy citizens from moving overseas and was instead used as a form of "legalized theft" to confiscate Jewish assets. The departure of Jewish citizens was desired and permitted by the Nazi government – even after the Invasion of Poland – until a decree from Heinrich Himmler forbade Jewish emigration on 23 October 1941. The tax was used as a "partial expropriation" to seize the assets of Jewish refugees who were persecuted and driven to flee their homeland.
Red Cross
International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). Red Cross delagates or representatives were able in some cases able to aid or protect Jews. They had protective immunity.
Refugee
Individual displaced from his or her country of origin.
Rescue Network(s)
Cooperation between agencies and groups to aid or rescue Jews.
Reseau Garel
French: “Garel Network”
Resistance
Opposition to Nazis and their collaberators.
Righteous Among the Nations
Non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Official title and honor created by the State of Israel in 1953.
“Sarah”
Name female Jews were forced to use on German and Austian identification papers and documents.
Sephardim
Jews of Spanish origin.
Service du Travail Obligatorie (STO)
French: Forced Work Force. In February 1943, Vichy government passed a law forcing selected French men and women to work in Germany.
She’erit-ha Pleta
Shelichim
Sho’ah
Hebrew: “Catastrophe”; term commonly used in Israel for the Holocaust
Sobibor
Nazi death camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Sobibór in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. In total, 170,000 to 250,000 people were murdered at Sobibor.
Socialist Zionist
Spanish Republicans
Volunteers from Spain and other countries who fought against Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. When the war ended, thousands of Spanish Republicans fled to Southern France. Many were interned in the French camps of Gur and Le Vernet.
Spiritual Resistance
SS; Schutzstaffel (G.)
The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as ᛋᛋ with 'Protection Squadron') was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing. The SS-Totenkopfverbände "Death's Head Units"), ran the concentration camps and death camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations. The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor.
Statut des Juifs
French: Jewish Statute. Group of antisemitic laws first enacted by the Vichy government on October 3, 1940. These and subsequent laws were applied against Jews in France and the French territories of Tunisian Algeria, and Morocco in North Africa. Combined with the German Aryanization laws, Jews were effectively removed from public and economic life in France.
Submarine
A person in hiding from authorties.
Teheran Children
Resue of nearly 1,000 child refugees who travelled from Central Asia to the Middle East as they fled the holocaust from Poland, Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran to Israel.
Tiyul
Hike. Escape route or journey for Jewish refugees.
Transit Camp
Jews were sent to transit camps prior to depotation to consentration camps and death camps.
Treblinka
Nazi death camp built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the village of Treblinka. The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed in its gas chambers.
Unoccupied Zone
Area of Southern France not occupied by German forces June 1940-September 1943.
Vatican, Vatican State
Although the Holy See is sometimes referred to as the "Vatican", the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, between the Holy See and Italy, to ensure the temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence of the papacy. As such, papal nuncios, who are papal diplomats to states and international organizations, are recognized as representing the Holy See, and not the Vatican City State, as prescribed in the Canon law of the Catholic Church.
Velodrome d’Hiver
Sports arena in suburbs of Paris. On July 16-17, 1942, 13,000 Jews were arrested and imprisoned here pending deportation.
Vichy
Resort town in Southern France, in the unoccupied zone. Established as the headquarters of the French government let by Martial Philippe Pétain. Government until German occupation in November 1942.
Visa
Document that permitted bearer to travel through, enter and exit a country. There were entry, exit and transit visas. Visas could be attached to or stamped in passports.
Yishuv
Hebrew: “Settlement”; Prewar Jewish Community in Palestine/Israel. Established under British mandate by League of Nations in 1921.
Youth Aliya
Jewish youth organization that prepared Jews to emigrate to Palestine.
Wehrmacht (G.)
German Armed Forces. Was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. Closely cooperating with the SS and the Einsatzgruppen, the German armed forces committed numerous war crimes. The majority of the war crimes took place in the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy.
Westerweel Group
Underground rescue network headed by Joop Westerweel* (1899-1944), a Dutch Christian. Working with Jewish groups, it smuggled Jews from France into Spain. Westerweel was shot in 1944 by Germans.
White paper
The White Paper of 1939 was a policy paper issued by the British government, led by Neville Chamberlain, in response to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. After its formal approval in the House of Commons on 23 May 1939, it acted as the governing policy for Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to the 1948 British departure. This action planned to end Jewish immigration by 1944 and to allow no more than 75,000 additional Jewish migrants. At the end of the five-year period in 1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been utilized, and the British offered to allow immigration to continue beyond cutoff date of 1944, at a rate of 1500 per month, until the remaining quota was filled.
Work as a Means of Rescue
Jews were saved fom murder in the holocaust while being employed in the German War effort. Factory owners or businessmen like Oscar Schindler intensionaly protected their Jewish workers.
Zionist, Zionism
Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and as a response to Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
Zionist Youth Groups
Within Europe, they were the nucleus of the Jewish resistance movements in the ghettos and camps of the Holocaust, and the partisans. They also led the escape (Beriha) from Europe following the war, particularly to Palestine, where most surviving members settled.