ghetto, section of a city where members of a minority group are segregated. Compulsory Jewish ghettos originated in 14th-cent. Spain and Portugal. Within the ghetto Jews generally had autonomy in all but economic matters, but outside it they were severely restricted. Abolished in W Europe by the 19th cent., ghettos were reinstituted by the Nazis in World War II. In the U.S., social and economic factors, rather than legal requirements, have segregated minorities into ghettos, e.g., New York's HARLEM.

pogrom, violent government-condoned attacks perpetrated against Russian Jews between 1881 and the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. Backed by official ANTI-SEMITISM, they stimulated large-scale Jewish emigration to the U.S. Pogroms also existed in Germany and Poland under HITLER.

concentration camp, prison or forced-labor camp outside the normal criminal system, for political prisoners, minorities, or others declared undesirable; first used by the British during the SOUTH AFRICAN WAR to confine Afrikaners. In Germany under the Nazis (see NATIONAL SOCIALISM), concentration camps were set up after 1933 to detain (without legal procedure) Jews, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others. During WORLD WAR II, extermination, or death, camps were established for the sole purpose of killing men, women, and children. In the most notorious camps—Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek in Poland, Buchenwald and Dachau in Germany—more than 6 million people, mostly Jews and Poles, were killed in gas chambers. Millions of others were also interned during the war, and a large proportion died of gross mistreatment, malnutrition, and disease. The term concentration camp has also been applied to similar camps operated by the Japanese during World War II, to the forced-labor camps of the USSR, and to the U.S. internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II.

relocation center, in U.S. history, camp in which Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. Fearing a Japanese invasion, the army, under the War Relocation Authority, forcibly moved approximately 120,000 people, most of whom were American citizens, from the West Coast. Although some who proved their loyalty were released after July 1943, most were detained until Dec. 1944; the last center closed in Mar. 1946. The internees suffered property losses estimated at $400 million. In 1988 the government agreed to give $20,000 and an apology to each of the surviving internees.

Nazi, term for member of the National Socialist German Workers' party. Led by Adolf HITLER after 1920, the Nazis advocated rabid NATIONALISM, ANTI-SEMITISM, and anti-Communism. Their rule (1933–45) in GERMANY ended in defeat during WORLD WAR II.

nationalism1. Devotion to the interests or culture of a particular nation.
2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.

swastika1. The emblem of Nazi Germany, officially adopted in 1935.
2. An ancient cosmic or religious symbol formed by a Greek cross with the ends of the arms bent at right angles in either a clockwise or a counterclockwise direction. Other names: Fylfot, Häkenkreuz (hä'k∂n-kroits').