Vichy FranceVichy France (Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State (l'État français), was the French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. It was named after its seat of government, the city of Vichy. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under the harsh terms of the 1940 armistice with Nazi Germany, it adopted a policy of collaboration.
SchutzmannschaftThe Schutzmannschaft, or Auxiliary Police ( "protective teams, or guard units"; plural: Schutzmannschaften, abbreviated as Schuma) was the collaborationist auxiliary police of native policemen serving in those areas of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, established the Schutzmannschaft on 25 July 1941, and subordinated it to the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei; Orpo). By the end of 1941, some 45,000 men served in Schutzmannschaft units, about half of them in the battalions.
Nazi saluteThe Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (, ˈhɪtlɐˌɡʁuːs; also called by the Nazi Party deutscher Gruß, 'German greeting', ˈdɔʏtʃɐ ˈɡʁuːs), or the Sieg Heil salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. The salute is performed by extending the right arm from the shoulder into the air with a straightened hand. Usually, the person offering the salute would say "Heil Hitler!" (lit. 'Hail Hitler!', ˌhaɪl ˈhɪtlɐ), "Heil, mein Führer!" ('Hail, my leader!'), or "Sieg Heil!" ('Hail victory!').
JudenratA Judenrat (ˈjuːdn̩ˌʁaːt, Jewish council) was an administrative body established in German-occupied Europe during World War II which purported to represent a Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form Judenräte across the occupied territories at local and sometimes national levels. Judenräte were particularly common in Nazi ghettos in Eastern Europe where in some cases, such as the Łódź Ghetto, and in Theresienstadt, they were known as the "Jewish Council of Elders" (Jüdischer Ältestenrat or Ältestenrat der Juden).
UntermenschUntermensch (ˈʔʊntɐˌmɛnʃ, underman', 'sub-man', 'subhuman; plural: Untermenschen) is a Nazi term for non-Aryan people they deem as inferior, who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Ukrainians, Serbs, and later also Russians). The term was also applied to "mulatto" and black people. Jewish, Polish and Romani people, along with the physically and mentally disabled, as well as homosexuals and political dissidents, and on rare instances, POWs from Western Allied armies, were to be exterminated in the Holocaust.
EstoniaEstonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of .
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (PCIA) (Narodný komissariat vnutrennih del (NKVD), nɐˈrod.nɨj kə.mjɪ.sə.rjɪˈat ˈvnut.rjɪ.njɪx̬ djel), abbreviated NKVD (НКВД ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. Established in 1917 as NKVD of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the agency was originally tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, with its functions being dispersed among other agencies, only to be reinstated as an all-union commissariat in 1934.
Polish resistance movement in World War IIThe Polish resistance movement in World War II (Polski ruch oporu w czasie II wojny światowej), with the Polish Home Army at its forefront covered both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front (damaging or destroying 1/8 of all rail transports), and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies (providing 43% of all reports from occupied Europe). It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
The HolocaustThe Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space" and seized power in early 1933.
Free FranceFree France (France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general Charles de Gaulle, Free France was established as a government-in-exile in London in June 1940 after the Fall of France during World War II and fought the Axis as an Allied nation with its Free French Forces (Forces françaises libres). Free France also supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied France, known as the French Forces of the Interior, and gained strategic footholds in several French colonies in Africa.
