Children in the Shadow of the Swastika Final

Ghettoization

Particularly in occupied Eastern territories. Began shortly after invasion of Poland in 1939.

Warheland

German-annexed Poland

General Government

Occupied Poland

Judenrat

Jewish council. Administered ghetto life and was responsible for internal organization of community and management of goods and services

Ghetto Police Force

Imposed public order and enforced decrees

Final Solution for ghettos

In occupied soviet territories
: beginning in 1941, mobile killing units murdered thousands of Jewish people in vicinity of ghettos.
In Polish ghettos
: ghetto populations gradually reduced by a series of "actions" in which thousands of ghetto residents w

Muselmann

Refers to prisoners who suffered from advanced exhaustion, starvation and often also disease. Were unresponsive to their surroundings, apathetic, and listless, regarding their fate, and resigned to their impending death. Literally means "muslim" in German

Existentialism

Applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject - not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In existentialism,

The 1.5 generation

Children and adolescent survivors - who were alive during the Nazi persecution of European Jews but were too young to have an adult understanding. Traumatic experiences occurred before the formation of a stable identity or sometimes even a sense of self

Roma/Sinti

Stigmatized as habitual criminals, social misfits, and vagabonds. Roma and Sinti were Aryan (more Aryan than the Germans). But, they were considered lower classes that mingled with various "inferior" races.

3 Racial Groups for Gypsies

Gypsies, Gypsy Mischlinge, Nomadic persons behaving as Gypsies

Phase 1 of Expulsion of Germans

Spontaneous flight and organized evacuation. Summer 1944-Spring 1945. Generally vague and ill-prepared plans to evacuate some German populations westwards prepared by various Nazi authorities towards the end of WWII

Phase 2 and 3 of Expulsion of Germans

Wild" expulsion conducted by local (Polish, Czech, etc.) military, and civilian authorities in Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe beginning in Summer 1945. These actions gave way in Spring 1946 to the 3rd phase. Series of larger, better-organized, and less l

Rape of German women at the end of WWII

Rape as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians, mostly female civilians.

1st Wave of Rape of German women

Occurred during the flight and evacuation of Germans from East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia in January 1945. Motif: revenge. The Soviet Army used women as stand-ins for the German army and took out their rage on them. Historians estimated that 1.4 mill

2nd Wave of Rape of German women

Concerned the rape of women in Berlin in the last days of the War and during the occupation. Characterized by less violence, but widespread. In this wave, women were seen as more the spoils of war rather than targets of rage and revenge. At least 100,000

Tactical bombing

Aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value (troops, military installations, or equipment)

Strategic bombing

Aerial bombing of enemy cities and factories to debilitate: Enemy's capacity to wage war, Enemy's future military production, Civilian population's will to continue the war

Area bombardment

Form of strategic bombing, aka "carpet bombing" or "saturation bombing": indiscriminate bombing of large area, serving several intertwined purposes:
To disrupt production of industrial and military goods, To disrupt lines of communications, To divert enem

Precision bombing

Attempted aerial bombing of a target with some degree of accuracy (aiming to limit collateral damage)

Terror bombing

A strategy of deliberately bombing and/or strafing civilian targets in order to:
Break morale of enemy, Make civilian population panic, Influence enemy's political leadership, Take revenge on enemy

Fire bombing

Bombing technique designed to damage a target (generally an urban area) through the use of fire from an incendiary device (rather than from the blast effect of large bombs):
Tactic originate during WWII with the use of strategic bombing, Small incendiary

Dresden

Bombing of Dresden led by the RAF and followed by the USAAF; it remains one of the more controversial Allied actions of WWII. Historians estimate that the firebombing resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people; the city itself 75% destroyed. Dr

Criticisms of strategic bombing

On practical grounds: because it does not work reliably. On moral grounds: because of the large civilian casualties. Designed to "break the enemy's will" - the opposite often happened

The three major factors that influenced the experiences of German civilians at the end of WWII and during Allied occupation

The massive aerial bombardment of German cities by the Allies, especially England and US. The mass flight of millions of German form parts of Eastern Europe and the eastern areas of Germany in advance of the Soviets. Mass rape of German women