Holocaust Chronology

1933

January 30: President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor (Prime Minister) of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

March 23: First concentration camp, Dachau, is established

April 1: Nazis proclaim a general boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses

April 7: Jews dismissed from civil service and denied admission to the bar

April 26: Formation of the Gestapo

May 2: Dissolution of free trade unions

May 10: Burning of books by Jews and opponents of Nazism

December 1: Hitler declares legal unity of the German State and Nazi Party

 

1934

August 2: Death of Hindenburg. Hitler becomes Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces

 

1935

Summer: Juden Verboten (No Jews) signs increase in number outside towns, villages, restaurants and stores

September 15: Reichstag passes anti-Semitic "Nuremberg Laws"

 

1936

October 25: Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis

November 25: Germany and Japan sign military pact

 

1937

July 16: Buchenwald concentration camp opens

 

1938

March 13: Annexation of Austria to the Third Reich. Nazis apply anti-Semitic laws.

July 6: International conference at Evian, France, fails to provide refuge for German Jews

September 29: Munich Agreement: Britain and France accept German annexation of Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia

October 5: Passports of Jews are marked with the letter "J"

November 7: Herschel Grynszpan, whose parents were deported from Germany to Poland, assassinates Ernst vom Rath, the Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris

November 9: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), antisemitic riots in Germany and Austria, synagogues are destroyed, shop are looted.

November 12: 26,000 Jews are arrested and sent to concentration camps

November 15: Jewish children are expelled from German schools

December 13: Decree on "Aryanization" (compulsory expropriation of Jewish industries, businesses and shops) is enacted

 

1939

March 15: Germans occupy Czechoslovakia

July 26: Adolf Eichmann is placed in charge of Prague branch of the emigration office

August 23: Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact

September 1: German Army invades Poland. Beginning of World War Il

September 3: Britain and France declare war on Germany

September 17: Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland

October 12: First deportation of Jews from Austria and Moravia to Poland

November 23: Wearing of Judenstern (Jewish six-pointed Star of David) is made compulsory throughout occupied Poland

 

1940

April 9: Germans invade Denmark and Norway

April 30: Ghetto at Lodz, Poland is sealed off

May 10: Germans invade Holland, Belgium and France

June 4: British Army evacuates its forces from Dunkirk, France

June 22: France surrenders to the Germans

September 27: Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis is established

November 15: Warsaw Ghetto is sealed off

 

1941

June 22: Germans attack the Soviet Union

July 8: Wearing of the Jewish star is decreed in the German occupied Baltic states

July 31: Heydrich is appointed by Goering to carry out "The Final Solution" (extermination of all Jews in Europe)

September 15: Wearing of the Jewish star is decreed throughout the Greater Reich

September 23: First experiments with gassing are made at Auschwitz

October 10: Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia is established

October 14: Deportation of German Jews begins

October 23: Massacre in Odessa - 34,000 dead

October 28: Massacre in Kiev - 34,000 dead

November 6: Massacre in Rovno - 15,000 dead

December 7: Japanese attack Pearl Harbour

December 8: United States enters the war

December 8: Chelmno extermination camp on the Ner River in Poland is opened

December 8: Massacre in Riga- 27,000 dead

December 22: Massacre in Vilna - 32,000 dead

 

1942

January 20: Wannsee Conference on Nazi "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"

January 21: Unified resistance organization is established in Vilna Ghetto. Jewish resistance groups expand in number throughout Eastern Europe.

June 1: Treblinka death camp opens. Wearing of the Jewish star is decreed in Nazi-occupied France and Holland. I

July 22: 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto are deported to Treblinka

July 28: Jewish resistance organization is, established in the Warsaw Ghetto.

October 17: Allied nations pledge to punish Germans for their policy of genocide

 

1943

January 18: Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto-launch uprising against Nazi deportations. Street fighting lasts for four days.

February 2: German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad. This marks the turning point in the war

April 19: Revolt of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begins. Fighting continues for weeks

May 16: Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto

June 11: Himmler orders liquidation of all Polish Jewish ghettos

June-September: Hundreds of Jewish partisans leave the Vilna Ghetto for the forest where, they continue their resistance to the Nazis.

August,2: Revolt at Treblinka death camp

August 16: Revolt in Bialystok Ghetto

September 23: Liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto

October 20: United Nations War Crimes Commission is established

 

1944

May 5-June 8: 476,000 Jews are deported from Hungary to Auschwitz

June 4: Allies in Rome

June 6: D-Day, Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Western Europe begins in Normandy, France

June 23: Soviet summer offensive begins

July 24: Soviet troops liberate Maidanek death camp

October 23: Paris is liberated by Allied armies'

November 24: Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria as Nazis try to hide evidence of the death camps

 

1945

January 17: Soviet troops liberate Warsaw

February 4-11: Yalta Conference in the Crimea

March 5: American troops reach the Rhine River

April 11: American troops liberate Buchenwald death camp.

April 15: British troops liberate Bergen-Belsen death camp

April 25: American and Soviet troops meet at the Elbe River'

April 30: Hitler commits suicide

May 7: Germany surrenders unconditionally. End of the war inEurope

August 15: Japan surrenders unconditionally. End of World War 11

November 22: Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal commences

The Nuremberg Trials concluded on October 1, 1946, which happened to be the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), with a judgment in which twelve defendants were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment, four to various prison terms, and three acquitted.

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