Badges and Other Symbols of the Holocaust Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. It is 1943. You have been transported by railway freight car to a concentration camp near your native Krakow. As you get off the train, you see a sign above the main gate reading "Arbeit Macht Frei". What does this sign literally mean?

Answer: Work sets you free

This is the sign above the gate of Auschwitz I. Since Auschwitz proper served as a dispatch center for various forced work camps all over Nazi territory, including the synthetic rubber plant at nearby Auschwitz III, the promise of freedom or at least relief in exchange for hard work was an important psychological ploy.

2. You are taken to a building where you are given a brief medical examination. After providing your personal information, you are tattooed on your left forearm with a five-digit number. What camp must you be at to receive this treatment?

Answer: Auschwitz

The tattooing that has become so horribly emblematic of the Holocaust (especially given that tattoos are forbidden by Jewish law) occurred only at Auschwitz. It has been recently determined that these numbers (whose formats changed throughout the Holocaust) corresponded with data stored on punchcards read by machines leased from IBM.

3. You are interned with many other prisoners, each wearing a characteristic striped uniform. When you report to work at the nearby synthetic rubber plant, you see many people with a large yellow six-pointed star on their left breast. How have the SS identified these people?

Answer: As Jews

Jews throughout Nazi occupied Europe were forced to wear the Star of David even in civilian life under the Nazi regime, often on a yellow armband. There is a persistent rumor that the King of Denmark wore the Star himself as a show of solidarity. Though this is not true, it is remarkable that the Danish people managed to save the vast majority of their Jewish citizens, transporting over 7,200 Jews to safety in Sweden.

All told, estimates of total Jewish deaths in the Holocaust range from 5,600,000 to 6,250,000.

4. You see one prisoner wearing a red triangle instead of a yellow star. What is the significance of this?

Answer: The prisoner has been singled out for his politics

Some prisoners were identified as political dissidents (such as Communist Partisans) during their initial screening. Others were interred for this reason alone. Also, red triangles worn point up were often used to designate enemy soldiers who were interned in the camps for one reason or another. Over three million Soviet prisoners of war were killed during this period.

5. You see one group of prisoners wearing purple triangles. They seem very anxious to speak with other prisoners, even when harshly disciplined for such activities by the SS. A fellow prisoner nudges you, saying "They could all get out if they wanted to!" Why are these prisoners here?

Answer: They are Jehovah's Witnesses

Targeted largely for their refusal to serve in the military, between 2,500 and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were killed in the Holocaust. Though they could be freed for renouncing their religion, few did, and many Witnesses attempted to convert fellow prisoners in the camps.

6. You see other prisoners wearing a blue triangle. These prisoners seem different from other prisoners, however, in that they appear to speak a plethora of different languages. You hear what sounds like French, Spanish, English, or Portugese; what German you do hear is halting and broken. What does the blue triangle designate?

Answer: They are suspect immigrants

According to Professor Krzysztof Dunin-Wasowicz, this symbol was often assigned to foreigners who had fought on the "wrong" side of the Spanish Civil War. More recently, the blue triangle has been adopted as a symbol for those who feel immigrants are being treated unfairly.

Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were forced to wear blue Stars of David, but this symbol was not widely used in the concentration camps.

7. You also see prisoners wearing green triangles. You further notice that they are shunned even by other prisoners. Who would be assigned a green triangle?

Answer: A habitual criminal

If a convict had already served their full sentence, the triangle was worn point-up, as opposed to the point-down convention for this and other such symbols. The green triangle was also often used for "mental defectives" with "criminal proclivities".

8. In one section of the camp, you see a group, separate from the others, wearing mostly black (and occasionally green) triangles. This is probably the Gypsy section of camp.

Answer: True

The black triangle was a catch-all symbol for "anti-social" behavior. This would include the itinerant Gypsies, but would also encompass "lazy" workers, some "mental defectives", and lesbians. Some lesbians today have adopted the black triangle as a symbol, though the pink triangle is probably more popular.

According to Isabel Fonseca's "Bury Me Standing" (Knopf, 1995), Gypsies were by legal definition either "asocial" (receiving a black triangle) or habitually criminal, thus receiving a green triangle. Other sources indicate that Gypsies were denoted with a brown triangle, but Fonseca makes a powerful case that this was not so, and that Gypsies were interred because of the behaviors ascribed to them as opposed to any special racial designation. In any event, over 200,000 Gypsies were killed in the Holocaust (demographics being elusive because of the unsettled nature of Gypsy culture and the reluctance of Gypsy survivors to detail their losses), and the Holocaust experience is largely responsible for the subsequent closing off of Gypsy culture to outsiders in many parts of Europe.

9. On occasion, you see male German prisoners wearing pink triangles. What does this triangle represent?

Answer: Homosexuality

The pink triangle was reserved for German male homosexuals, though it has since been adopted as the predominant symbol of the wider gay community. Homosexuals were prosecuted under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which had been in force since the German unification of 1871. Shockingly, this paragraph, though increasingly ignored over time, stayed in effect until the late 1980s and was only fully repealed after German reunification. According to The Holocaust Chronicle (holocaustchronicle.org), approximately 12,000 homosexuals were killed by the Nazis.

10. As you lay down in your bunk after your day in the camp, you cannot help but reflect on the irony of the slogan you saw the rank and file German soldiers wear before you were sent here. Proudly emblazoned on their belt buckles was the motto "Gott mit Uns" - "G-d is with us".

Answer: True

This contrasts with the motto of the Schutzstaffel (SS) who carried out the final solution. They proudly wore the phrase "Meine Ehre hei�t Treue (My honor is loyalty) emblazoned on their sashes.

A note on my spelling: in Jewish tradition, the name of the deity is only spelled out in scripture. For other uses, a substitute like "G-d" is used.

The relationship of Nazism to Christianity is a curious puzzle. For an informal yet well-researched look at this quandary, see http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html.

Thank you very much for playing; I hope that this was an edifying experience for you. If you have any questions or corrections, please send me a message. Please note that comments from Holocaust deniers will be ignored.

Source: Author stuthehistoryguy

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

This quiz asks you to assume to role of a recent deportee to a concentration camp and interpret your surroundings based on your knowledge of Holocaust symbolism.

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