The Emperor of Lies (60 page)

Some Yiddish spellings in the text reflect contemporary dialect

Aleynhilf
(Yidd.)    Jewish self-help organisation

Approvisation
(Austrian Ger.)    officialese; term used in the ghetto for food distribution; the head of the Approvisation Department was Maks (Awigdor Mendel) Szczęśliwy

badchen
(Hebr./Yidd.; plural
badchonim
)    jester, entertainer (at weddings, etc.)

Beirat
(Ger.)    another name for the ‘Council of the Elders’ appointed by the Germans, with Rumkowski as its chairman

bocher
(Yidd.)    Talmud student

botwinki
(Pol.)    beetroot tops (plural)

Bund
(Yidd.)    the Jewish socialist party; full name: United Jewish Socialist Workers Party, in Poland, Lithuania and Russia (argued against both ‘assimilation’ and ‘emigration’)

dybek
(Yidd.)    evil spirit

dietka
(Pol.)    special ghetto shops selling such restricted items as dairy products (on prescription)

dygnitarze
(Pol.; plural
dygnitarzy
)    an official, a (high-ranking, Jewish) ghetto functionary

dróshke
(Yidd.)    hired carriage; Pol.:
dorożka

działka
(Pol.)    garden plot, allotment

eved hagermanim
(Hebr.)    slave of the Germans

feldsher
(Yidd.)    surgeon carrying out basic operations, barber-surgeon

ganef
(Yidd.; plural
ganovim
)    young rascal, thief

Generalgouvernement
(Ger.)    the part of Poland not directly incorporated into the German Reich

goniec
(Pol.)    ‘prancer’ (literally: horse); ghetto slang for a runner, messenger boy

Gordonia
(Yidd.)    Zionist youth organisation; founded by Aharon David Gordon (1856–1922), a progressive Zionist

grober
(Yidd.)    gravedigger, digger

hakhshara
(Yidd; plural
haksharot
)    agricultural collective for young people on their way to Palestine

Hanukkah
    Jewish midwinter festival, commemorating the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem

Hashomer Hatsair
    Zionist youth organisation with Marxist tendencies

helfer
(Yidd.)    teacher’s assistant

Kaddish
(Hebr.)    funeral prayer

kapote
(Yidd.)    long coat formerly worn by male Jews of eastern Europe

kashrut
(Hebr.)    (religious) rules governing the preparation and consumption of food; kosher

kehila
(
kehile
,
kehal
) (Yidd.)    Jewish community council. Before the Second World War, all such community councils in Poland came under a central, ruling body,
Vaad Arba Aratzot
, which constituted a Jewish parliament equivalent to the Polish one (sejm =
sejmik
) with administrative and legislative power over all the Jewish communities on Polish territory. (The Nazis’ improper, even perverted version of a ‘Council of Elders’ (
Ältestenrat
) or ‘Jewish Council’ had its roots in this division of legislative power between the Polish and Jewish nations of Poland)

khevre
(
chevre
) (Yidd.)    guild; professional association; circle of friends

kidushin
(Hebr.)    wedding;
mesader kidushin
– one who officiates at a wedding

kierownik
(Pol.)    head of a factory or workshop

kolacja
(Pol.)    evening meal; also (after 1943) the name given to the meals to which those employed in heavy labour were entitled every other week on production of coupons devised by the Chairman; known in German as
Kräftigungsmittage

kolejka
(Pol.)    queue (for example, at a food distribution point)

luftmentsh
(Yidd.)    literally, person of the air, impractical person who achieves nothing in life

matse
(Yidd.)    unleavened bread, eaten at Pesach (Passover) to commemorate the flight from Egypt

melamed
(Yidd./Hebr.)    schoolteacher (of young children)

menaschka
(Ger./Yidd.; plural
menażka
)
    a mess tin or can, usually tied round the body, for holding and transporting soup. A word of Austrian origin: in the Austrian army, the word
menage
is used to mean ‘food (and drink)’; hence the word
Menage-schale
(food bowl); Polish spelling:
menażka

minyen
(Yidd.; Hebr: minjan)    prayer group

Mitsraim
(Yidd./Hebr.)    Egypt

mittags
(Yidd.)    ghetto slang for the (midday) soup that all workers at all
resorty
paid to receive at their places of work (also known as
resortka
)

mosrim
(Hebr.)    informant, informer

neshome
(Yidd.)    soul

ochronki
(Pol.)    orphanage (German:
Waisenheim
)

OD
(Ger.)    
Ordnungsdienst:
the Jewish ghetto police (until September 1941)

opiekuni
(Pol.)    supervisor at a factory, soup kitchen, etc.

pekl
(Yidd.)    bundle, pack

pleytses
(
plaitses
) (Yidd.)     literally ‘shoulders’, protection; also
protekcja
(Pol.)

ratsye
(Yidd.)    ration

rebbe
(Yidd.)    a rabbi in the Hasidic Jewish community

resort
(Pol.)    from the German
Arbeitsressort
, term for factories and larger workshops in the ghetto

resortka
(Pol.)    (midday) soup served in the factory canteens; also
mittags
(Yidd.)

sheine jidn
(Yidd.)    literally: the ‘beautiful’ Jews, the rich and wealthy upper class, cf:
di balabatim
(the respected, the bourgeoisie), or
proste
(the ordinary people)

shiske
(Yidd.)    potentate, ‘big shot’

shobecht
(Yidd.)    potato peel

shoyfet
(Hebr, Yidd.)    a judge

shóyte
(Yidd.)    idiot

shojfer
(Yidd.)    horn blown during religious festivals, such as the Jewish New Year celebration, Rosh Hashanah, and when leaving the synagogue on the Day of Atonement; the expression
Ivan blust shoifer
means that someone else (originally the Russians) has taken charge of Jewish affairs

shoklen
(Yidd.)    to ‘shake’, to rock to and fro (at prayer)

shomer
(Hebr.)    guard

shomrim
(Hebr.)    members of the Zionist youth collective Hashomer Hatzair (= rescuers, protectors); most of its members were Zionists overtly non-religious and Marxist in character

shpere
(Yidd.; from Ger.
Gehsprerre
, Pol.
szpera
)    curfew;
di groise shpere
was the name used in the ghetto for the SS-implemented cleansing operations and mass murders of the ghetto Jews, 5–11 September 1942

shtetl
(Yidd.; plural
shtetlech
)    village or small town, sometimes referred to places where Jews constituted a significant proportion of the population

shtraiml
(Yidd.)    (Hasidic) fur hat

Sonderkommando
(Ger.), later known as
Sonderabteilung
    special force within the Jewish ghetto police; helped the Gestapo seize items of value, and was subsequently in charge of rounding people up for the German authorities, ready for deportation or forced labour; led until July 1943 by
Dawid Gertler
; and after him by
Marek Kligier

świetlica
(Pol.)    dayroom or living room

szarlotka
(Pol.)    an apple pastry

tallit
(Hebr.)    prayer shawl

talmid
(Hebr.)    student

Talmud Tora
(Hebr.)    (public) Jewish primary school with basic instruction in arithmetic, spelling, Hebrew etc; the teacher at the Talmud Torah school, the
melamed
, usually lived with his family in the schoolroom

tefillin
(Hebr.)    slips of parchment containing passages from the Torah, worn in small, cube-shaped leather boxes strapped to the arm and forehead during daily prayers

tnoyim
(Yidd.)    marriage or betrothal contract; a term used in the ghetto for the deportation order served on ‘undesirable’ residents

treyf
(Yidd.)    non-kosher food, refuse

trepki
(Pol.)    wooden clogs

tsaddik
(Yidd; plural
tsaddikim
)    a holy, literally ‘righteous’ man, spiritual leader of a Hasidic communion;
tzadika
(Hebr. form)
daughter of such a holy man

tsdóke
(Yidd.)    charity

tsetl
(Yidd.)    list, slip of paper

tsholent
(Yidd.)    Jewish dish of potatoes, beans and meat, prepared on low heat for the Sabbath

tsiper
(Yidd.)    pickpocket, pilferer

(
pani
)
Wydzielaczka
(Pol.)    ghetto slang for the – usually young – women who served soup in the factory canteens and soup kitchens

yarmulke
(Yidd.)    skullcap

yeke
(Yidd.)    ‘Eastern Jewish’ term for German; ghetto slang for the western European (‘German’) Jews who began arriving in the ghetto in September 1941

Yom Kippur
(Hebr.)    Day of Atonement