We were There - The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

“Final Solution” - The Nazi’s euphemistic term for their plan to exterminate the Jews of Germany and
other German-controlled territories during World War II. The term was used at the Wannsee Conference
of January 1942, in which Nazi leaders planned the Holocaust but made no specific mention of the
extermination camps that ultimately killed millions.
Gestapo - The brutal Nazi secret police force, headed by Hermann Göring. The Gestapo was responsible
for the relocation of many European Jews to Nazi concentration camps during the war.
Gendarmerie - A body of the military or a group organized along military lines charged with police
duties among civilian populations on a national level. Individual members are known as Gendarmes.
Ghetto - During World War II, the Nazi occupying forces typically organized a city’s Jews by forcing them
to live in an area enclosed by a wall. Characterized by severely cramped living quarters and scarce food
sources, the ghettos were rife with disease and malnutrition. The Budapest ghetto was established in
November of 1944, soon after the Nazis had taken command of the city. It only lasted for three months,
as Budapest was liberated by the Soviets in January 1945. However, the ghetto was threatened by an
extermination plan conceived by Adolf Eichmann, and the 70,000 Jews that remained there were saved
solely due to the intervention of Raoul Wallenberg and his cohorts.
Glass House - Formerly a glass factory, the Glass House was the headquarters of the Jewish youth
underground in Budapest, Hungary, during the Holocaust. The building was also used by Swiss diplomat
Carl Lutz to shelter persecuted Jews.
Gulag - An acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies, it is a government
agency that administered the main Soviet penal labor camp systems, which housed a wide range of
convicts—from petty criminals to political prisoners. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of
political repression in the Soviet Union.
Hungarian Anti-Jewish Laws - Starting in 1938, the Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy, passed a
series of anti-Jewish measures in emulation of Germany's Nuremberg Laws. The first anti-Jewish law—
issued on May 29, 1938—restricted the number of Jews in each commercial enterprise in the press,
among physicians, engineers, and lawyers to 20%. The second law—issued on May 5, 1939—defined
people with two, three, or four Jewish-born grandparents as Jewish. Their employment in government at
any level was forbidden, they could not be editors at newspapers, and their numbers were restricted to
6% among theater and movie actors, physicians, lawyers, and engineers. Private companies were
forbidden to employ more than 12% Jews. The third law—issued on August 8, 1941—prohibited
intermarriage and penalized sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.
Judenrate - The name of the administrative body that governed the Jewish ghettos during World War II.
Established by the Nazis, the Jewish leaders of this council were appointed by the Germans and ultimately
answered to them. They had relatively little power, but they were able to organize the ghetto and
establish limited aid services for the residents of the ghetto.
Lebensraum - Literally “living space,” Adolf Hitler’s justification for Germany’s aggressive territorial
conquests in the late 1930s. Based on the work of a previous German ethnographer, Hitler used the idea
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