The “gate of death” at Birkenau concentration camp
Q: January 27 has been chosen as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the holocaust, for a reason. Do you know why?
A: The Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945.
Q: Did you know that the word Nazi is actually an abbreviation for Hitler’s political party? Maybe we’ve given out too much already, but what does Nazi expand to (in German)?
A: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte. It was used by the German press, and Don, the rest of the world. Hitler himself detested being called a Nazi.
Q: Another question on etymology. The Nazi killing pogrom was called the Holocaust. Why was this word chosen?
A: Holocaust comes from the Greek holokauston, a translation of the Hebrew word ʿolah, meaning: ‘burnt sacrifice offered whole to God’. Remember the extermination camps, this is how the bodies of the victims who were gassed, were disposed of – they were piled up and burnt.
Q: While the Nazis targeted Jews, they also slaughtered other groups of people, in their effort to engineering the pure Aryan race, through a mixture of eugenics and murder. Name at least two other groups thus prosecuted.
A: Disabled, travelling communities such as the Roma and Sinti, and gay men.
Q: When was the first concentration camp opened in Nazi Germany, and where?
A: March 22, 1933, at Dachau