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Symbols of the Holocaust

Yellow Star- Yellow cloth Star of David sewn to clothing to identify Jews

The Original Meaning The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix. Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.

Even in the early twentieth century, the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.

Change in Meaning In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

Hitler and the Nazis In 1920, Adolf Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag. For Hitler, the new flag had to be "a symbol of our own struggle" as well as "highly effective as a poster." (Mein Kampf, pg. 495) On August 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress, this flag became the official emblem of the Nazi Party.

The butterfly hovers above the red poppy, symbolic of the triumph of the human will and spirit. The Red Flower"... 1999, for the blood of the murdered souls, upon which can be sown seeds of hope and tolerance.

Holocaust Terminology

Holocaust- Term used to refer to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. Also included the extermination of Gypsies and Poles. Holo- whole Caustos – burned Religious rite in which an offering was consumed by fire

Prejudice– An attitude toward a person or a group of people formed without adequate information Anti-Semitism discrimination or persecution of Jews Juden- German word for “Jews” Aryan racial term used by Nazis to describe a “race” they believed to be superior. It has no biological validity.

Nazi- Acronym for the National Socialist German Workers Party. Gestapo abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police).

Ghetto- Usually established in the poor section of a city where Jews, from the city and surrounding area, were forced to live.

Often surrounded by barbed wire or walls, the ghettos were sealed Often surrounded by barbed wire or walls, the ghettos were sealed. Established mostly in eastern Europe (e.g., Lodz, Warsaw, Vilna, Riga, or Minsk), the ghettos were characterized by overcrowding, malnutrition, and heavy labor. All were eventually dissolved, and the Jews murdered.

Deportation- The forced removal of Jews in Nazi occupied lands to concentration camps

Concentration Camp a place where political prisoners were kept Dachau the first German concentration camp established on March 20, 1933 and liberated on April 28, 1945 Auschwitz a Nazi camp located in Poland, notorious as an extermination center

Belsen a Nazi concentration camp and extermination center in Germany Buchenwald a Nazi concentration camp and extermination center in Germany. It is liberated on April 11, 1945 Mauthausen a Nazi concentration camp in Austria

Selection: the process of choosing victims for the gas chambers in the Nazi camps by separating them from those considered fit to work

Death Camps-Nazi centers of murder and extermination

Death Camps All were located in Poland Death Camps All were located in Poland. Chelmno Sobibor Belzec Treblinka Auschwitz-Birchenau Majdanek

Gas chambers: Large chambers in which people were executed by poison gas. These were built and used in Nazi death camps Zyklon-B- The gas used to kill Jews in the gas chamber at the death camps.

Crematorium furnaces where human bodies were burned

Death Marches- The marches imposed upon prisoners by the Nazis in order to keep them from liberation by the Allied forces.

Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, cultural, or religious group.

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