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  • New York City, New York, U.S.
    1895

    The Term

    New York City, New York, U.S.
    1895

    The term holocaust, first used in 1895 by the New York Times to describe the massacre of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Muslims.




  • Germany
    1918

    Stab-in-the-back myth

    Germany
    1918

    After World War I (1914–1918), many Germans did not accept that their country had been defeated, which gave birth to the stab-in-the-back myth. This insinuated that it was disloyal politicians, chiefly Jews and communists, who had orchestrated Germany's surrender. Inflaming the anti-Jewish sentiment was the apparent over-representation of Jews in the leadership of communist revolutionary governments in Europe, such as Ernst Toller, head of a short-lived revolutionary government in Bavaria. This perception contributed to the canard of Jewish Bolshevism.




  • Germany
    Monday Jan 30, 1933

    Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany

    Germany
    Monday Jan 30, 1933

    With the appointment in January 1933 of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi's seizure of power, German leaders proclaimed the rebirth of the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").




  • Germany
    Sunday Mar 5, 1933

    March 1933 Reichstag elections

    Germany
    Sunday Mar 5, 1933

    Before and after the March 1933 Reichstag elections, the Nazis intensified their campaign of violence against opponents, setting up concentration camps for extrajudicial imprisonment.




  • Germany
    Wednesday Mar 22, 1933

    Dachau opened

    Germany
    Wednesday Mar 22, 1933

    Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, opened on 22 March 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany.




  • Germany
    Saturday Apr 1, 1933

    Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses

    Germany
    Saturday Apr 1, 1933

    On 1 April 1933, there was a boycott of Jewish businesses.




  • Germany
    Thursday Apr 6, 1933

    Jewish businesses closed

    Germany
    Thursday Apr 6, 1933

    Jewish businesses were targeted for closure or "Aryanization", the forcible sale to Germans; of the approximately 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in Germany in 1933.


  • Germany
    Friday Apr 7, 1933

    Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed

    Germany
    Friday Apr 7, 1933

    On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, which excluded Jews and other "non-Aryans" from the civil service. Jews were disbarred from practicing law, being editors or proprietors of newspapers, joining the Journalists' Association, or owning farms.


  • Germany
    Friday Jul 14, 1933

    Sterilization Law

    Germany
    Friday Jul 14, 1933

    On 14 July 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses), the Sterilization Law, was passed.


  • U.S.
    Thursday Dec 21, 1933

    "400,000 Germans to be sterilized"

    U.S.
    Thursday Dec 21, 1933

    The New York Times reported on 21 December that year: "400,000 Germans to be sterilized". There were 84,525 applications from doctors in the first year. The courts reached a decision in 64,499 of those cases; 56,244 were in favor of sterilization. Estimates for the number of involuntary sterilizations during the whole of the Third Reich range from 300,000 to 400,000.


  • Berlin, Germany
    Sunday Sep 15, 1935

    Nuremberg Laws

    Berlin, Germany
    Sunday Sep 15, 1935

    On 15 September 1935, the Reichstag passed the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, known as the Nuremberg Laws. The former said that only those of "German or kindred blood" could be citizens. Anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents was classified as a Jew. The second law said: "Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden." Sexual relationships between them were also criminalized; Jews were not allowed to employ German women under the age of 45 in their homes.


  • Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938

    Germany annexed Austria

    Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938

    On 12 March 1938, Germany annexed Austria. Austrian Nazis broke into Jewish shops, stole from Jewish homes and businesses, and forced Jews to perform humiliating acts such as scrubbing the streets or cleaning toilets. Jewish businesses were "Aryanized", and all the legal restrictions on Jews in Germany were imposed.


  • France
    Wednesday Jul 6, 1938

    Évian Conference

    France
    Wednesday Jul 6, 1938

    The Évian Conference was held in France in July 1938 by 32 countries, as an attempt to help the increased refugees from Germany, but aside from establishing the largely ineffectual Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, little was accomplished and most countries participating did not increase the number of refugees they would accept.


  • Vienna, Austria
    Aug, 1938

    Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna

    Vienna, Austria
    Aug, 1938

    In August that year, Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung in Wien).


  • Paris, France
    Monday Nov 7, 1938

    Polish Jew shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris

    Paris, France
    Monday Nov 7, 1938

    On 7 November 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris, in retaliation for the expulsion of his parents and siblings from Germany.


  • Paris, France
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    Ernst vom Rath died

    Paris, France
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    When vom Rath died on 9 November, the government used his death as a pretext to instigate a pogrom against the Jews. The government claimed it was spontaneous, but in fact, it had been ordered and planned by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, although with no clear goals, according to David Cesarani. The result, he writes, was "murder, rape, looting, destruction of property, and terror on an unprecedented scale".


  • Germany
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    30,000 Jews were sent to the Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps

    Germany
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    Between 9 and 16 November, 30,000 Jews were sent to the Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Many were released within weeks; by early 1939, 2,000 remained in the camps. German Jewry was held collectively responsible for restitution of the damage; they also had to pay an "atonement tax" of over a billion Reichmarks. Insurance payments for damage to their property were confiscated by the government.


  • Germany
    Thursday Nov 10, 1938

    Kristallnacht

    Germany
    Thursday Nov 10, 1938

    Known as Kristallnacht (or "Night of Broken Glass"), the attacks on 9–10 November 1938 were partly carried out by the SS and SA, but ordinary Germans joined in; in some areas, the violence began before the SS or SA arrived.


  • Germany
    1938

    Approximately half the German Jewish population had left Germany

    Germany
    1938

    By the end of 1938, approximately half the German Jewish population had left, among them the conductor Bruno Walter, who fled after being told that the hall of the Berlin Philharmonic would be burned down if he conducted a concert there. Albert Einstein, who was in the United States when Hitler came to power, never returned to Germany; his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and Prussian Academy of Sciences. Other Jewish scientists, including Gustav Hertz, lost their teaching positions and left the country.


  • Berlin, Germany
    Monday Jan 30, 1939

    Germany began a genocide policy against Jews

    Berlin, Germany
    Monday Jan 30, 1939

    In 1939 that marked the transition in Nazi racial antisemitism toward genocide. To justify the murder of the Jews both to the perpetrators and to bystanders in Germany and Europe, the Nazis used not only racist arguments but also arguments derived from older negative stereotypes, including Jews as communist subversives, as war profiteers and hoarders, and as a danger to internal security because of their inherent disloyalty and opposition to Germany.


  • Austria
    May, 1939

    100,000 Austrian Jews had left the country

    Austria
    May, 1939

    About 100,000 Austrian Jews had left the country by May 1939, including Sigmund Freud and his family, who moved to London.


  • Germany
    Tuesday Aug 29, 1939

    List of 30,000 people to send to concentration camps

    Germany
    Tuesday Aug 29, 1939

    The German army, the Wehrmacht, was accompanied by seven SS Einsatzgruppen ("special task forces") and an Einsatzkommando, numbering altogether 3,000 men, whose role was to deal with "all anti-German elements in the hostile country behind the troops in combat". Most of the Einsatzgruppen commanders were professionals; 15 of the 25 leaders had PhDs.


  • Poland
    Friday Sep 1, 1939

    Germany invaded Poland

    Poland
    Friday Sep 1, 1939

    When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, triggering a declaration of war from France and the UK, it gained control of an additional two million Jews, reduced to around 1.7 – 1.8 million in the German zone when the Soviet Union invaded from the east on 17 September.


  • Germany
    Thursday Sep 21, 1939

    Letter from Reinhard Heydrich to the Einsatzgruppen

    Germany
    Thursday Sep 21, 1939

    According to a letter dated 21 September 1939 from SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA or Reich Security Head Office), to the Einsatzgruppen, each ghetto had to be run by a Judenrat, or "Jewish Council of Elders", to consist of 24 male Jews with local influence.


  • Germany
    Oct, 1939

    Hitler signed a "euthanasia decree"

    Germany
    Oct, 1939

    In October 1939 Hitler signed a "euthanasia decree" backdated to 1 September 1939 that authorized Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, the chief of Hitler's Chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician, to carry out a program of involuntary euthanasia. After the war this program came to be known as Aktion T4, named after Tiergartenstraße 4, the address of a villa in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, where the various organizations involved were headquartered.


  • Poland
    Jan, 1940

    Gas vans equipped with gas cylinders had been used to kill the handicapped in occupied Poland

    Poland
    Jan, 1940

    In December 1939 and January 1940, gas vans equipped with gas cylinders and a sealed compartment had been used to kill the handicapped in occupied Poland.


  • Norway and Denmark
    Tuesday Apr 9, 1940

    Germany invaded Norway and Denmark

    Norway and Denmark
    Tuesday Apr 9, 1940

    Germany invaded Norway and Denmark on 9 April 1940, during Operation Weserübung. Denmark was overrun so quickly that there was no time for a resistance to form. Consequently, the Danish government stayed in power and the Germans found it easier to work through it. Because of this, few measures were taken against the Danish Jews before 1942.


  • Germany
    May, 1940

    Alexander von Falkenhausen enacted anti-Jewish measures

    Germany
    May, 1940

    In May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France. After Belgium's surrender, the country was ruled by a German military governor, Alexander von Falkenhausen, who enacted anti-Jewish measures against its 90,000 Jews, many of them refugees from Germany or Eastern Europe.


  • Norway
    Jun, 1940

    Norway was completely occupied

    Norway
    Jun, 1940

    By June 1940, Norway was completely occupied.


  • France
    Jul, 1940

    Jews in the parts of Alsace-Lorraine was expelled

    France
    Jul, 1940

    In July 1940, the Jews in the parts of Alsace-Lorraine that had been annexed to Germany were expelled into Vichy France.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    1940

    Polish government-in-exile in London learned about Auschwitz from the Polish leadership in Warsaw

    London, England, United Kingdom
    1940

    The Polish government-in-exile in London learned about Auschwitz from the Polish leadership in Warsaw, who from late 1940 "received a continual flow of information" about the camp, according to historian Michael Fleming.


  • Warsaw, Poland
    1941

    Warsaw ghetto contained 445,000 people

    Warsaw, Poland
    1941

    In early 1941, the Warsaw ghetto contained 445,000 people, including 130,000 from elsewhere, while the second-largest, the Łódź ghetto, held 160,000. Although the Warsaw ghetto contained 30 percent of the city's population, it occupied only 2.5 percent of its area, averaging over nine people per room. The massive overcrowding, poor hygiene facilities, and lack of food killed thousands. Over 43,000 residents died in 1941.


  • Netherlands
    1941

    Arthur Seyss-Inquart began to persecute the country's 140,000 Jews

    Netherlands
    1941

    In the Netherlands, the Germans installed Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Reichskommissar, who began to persecute the country's 140,000 Jews. Jews were forced out of their jobs and had to register with the government. In February 1941, non-Jewish Dutch citizens staged a strike in protest that was quickly crushed.


  • Yugoslavia and Greece
    Apr, 1941

    Yugoslavia and Greece were invaded

    Yugoslavia and Greece
    Apr, 1941

    Yugoslavia and Greece were invaded in April 1941 and surrendered before the end of the month. Germany and Italy divided Greece into occupation zones but did not eliminate it as a country. The key areas of Central Macedonia, Athens, and Thessaloniki were occupied by Germany while others by Italians and parts by Bulgarian forces.


  • Bucharest, Romania
    Jun, 1941

    Thousands of Jews were killed

    Bucharest, Romania
    Jun, 1941

    Thousands of Jews were killed in January and June 1941 in the Bucharest pogrom and Iași pogrom. According to a 2004 report by Tuvia Friling and others, up to 14,850 Jews died during the Iași pogrom.


  • Romania
    Jun, 1941

    Romania joined Germany in its invasion of the Soviet Union

    Romania
    Jun, 1941

    In June 1941, Romania joined Germany in its invasion of the Soviet Union. Jews were forced from government service, pogroms were carried out, and by March 1941 all Jews had lost their jobs and had their property confiscated.


  • U.S.S.R.
    Sunday Jun 22, 1941

    Germany and Romania invaded the Soviet Union

    U.S.S.R.
    Sunday Jun 22, 1941

    Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, a day Timothy Snyder called "one of the most significant days in the history of Europe ... the beginning of a calamity that defies description".


  • Jedwabne, Poland
    Thursday Jul 10, 1941

    Jedwabne pogrom

    Jedwabne, Poland
    Thursday Jul 10, 1941

    During the Jedwabne pogrom on 10 July 1941, a group of Poles in Jedwabne killed the town's Jewish community, many of whom were burned alive in a barn. The attack may have been engineered by the German Security Police.


  • Lviv, Ukraine
    Jul, 1941

    Lviv pogroms in Lwów

    Lviv, Ukraine
    Jul, 1941

    In June and July 1941, during the Lviv pogroms in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), around 6,000 Polish Jews were murdered in the streets by the Ukrainian People's Militia and local people.


  • Vilnius, Lithuania
    Jul, 1941

    Ponary massacre

    Vilnius, Lithuania
    Jul, 1941

    Notable massacres include the July 1941 Ponary massacre near Vilnius (Soviet Lithuania), in which Einsatgruppe B and Lithuanian collaborators shot 72,000 Jews and 8,000 non-Jewish Lithuanians and Poles.


  • Romania
    Jul, 1941

    It was time for "total ethnic purification"

    Romania
    Jul, 1941

    In July 1941 Mihai Antonescu, Romania's deputy prime minister, said it was time for "total ethnic purification, for a revision of national life, and for purging our race of all those elements which are foreign to its soul, which have grown like mistletoes and darken our future".


  • Libya
    1941

    2,600 Libyan Jews were sent to camps

    Libya
    1941

    Several forced labor camps for Jews were established in Italian-controlled Libya; almost 2,600 Libyan Jews were sent to camps, where 562 died.


  • Germany
    Aug, 1941

    Hitler canceled the T4 program

    Germany
    Aug, 1941

    In August 1941, after protests from Germany's Catholic and Protestant churches, Hitler canceled the T4 program, although the handicapped continued to be killed until the end of the war. The medical community regularly received bodies for research; for example, the University of Tübingen received 1,077 bodies from executions between 1933 and 1945.


  • Ukraine
    Aug, 1941

    Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre

    Ukraine
    Aug, 1941

    In the Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre (Soviet Ukraine), nearly 24,000 Jews were killed between 27 and 30 August 1941.Lviv, Ukraine


  • Kiev, U.S.S.R.
    Monday Sep 29, 1941

    Babi Yar

    Kiev, U.S.S.R.
    Monday Sep 29, 1941

    The largest massacre was at a ravine called Babi Yar outside Kiev (also Soviet Ukraine), where 33,771 Jews were killed on September 29–30, 1941.


  • U.S.
    Friday Oct 3, 1941

    American Hebrew used the phrase "before the Holocaust"

    U.S.
    Friday Oct 3, 1941

    On 3 October 1941, the American Hebrew used the phrase "before the Holocaust", appears to refer to the situation in France, and in May 1943 the New York Times, discussing the Bermuda Conference, referred to the "hundreds of thousands of European Jews still surviving the Nazi Holocaust".


  • Berlin, Germany
    Friday Dec 12, 1941

    Hitler declared that the Jews would be exterminated

    Berlin, Germany
    Friday Dec 12, 1941

    Hitler "announced his decision in principle" to annihilate the Jews on or around 12 December 1941, One day after he declared war on the United States. on that day, Hitler gave a speech in his private apartment at the Reich Chancellery to senior Nazi Party leaders: the Reichsleiter, the most senior, and the Gauleiter, the regional leaders.


  • Poland
    Dec, 1941

    Himmler changed efficient methods of killing

    Poland
    Dec, 1941

    Himmler and his subordinates in the field feared that the murders were causing psychological problems for the SS, and began searching for more efficient methods. In December 1941, similar vans, using exhaust fumes rather than bottled gas, were introduced into the camp at Chełmno, Victims were asphyxiated while being driven to prepared burial pits in the nearby forests.


  • Moscow, U.S.S.R.
    Tuesday Jan 6, 1942

    Vyacheslav Molotov sent out diplomatic notes about German atrocities

    Moscow, U.S.S.R.
    Tuesday Jan 6, 1942

    On 6 January 1942, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, sent out diplomatic notes about German atrocities. The notes were based on reports about mass graves and bodies surfacing from pits and quarries in areas the Red Army had liberated, as well as witness reports from German-occupied areas.


  • Berlin, Germany
    Tuesday Jan 20, 1942

    Wannsee Conference

    Berlin, Germany
    Tuesday Jan 20, 1942

    SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA), convened what became known as the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942 at Am Großen Wannsee 56–58, a villa in Berlin's Wannsee suburb.


  • Poland
    Feb, 1942

    Szlama Ber Winer escaped from the Chełmno concentration camp

    Poland
    Feb, 1942

    The following month, Szlama Ber Winer escaped from the Chełmno concentration camp in Poland and passed information about it to the Oneg Shabbat group in the Warsaw Ghetto. His report, known by his pseudonym as the Grojanowski Report, had reached London by June 1942.


  • Netherlands
    Jul, 1942

    Over 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported

    Netherlands
    Jul, 1942

    From July 1942, over 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported; only 5,000 survived the war. Most were sent to Auschwitz; the first transport of 1,135 Jews left Holland for Auschwitz on 15 July 1942. Between 2 March and 20 July 1943, 34,313 Jews were sent in 19 transports to the Sobibór extermination camp, where all but 18 are thought to have been gassed on arrival.


  • Poland
    Jul, 1942

    Resistance groups were formed

    Poland
    Jul, 1942

    Raul Hilberg accounted for this by evoking the history of Jewish persecution: compliance might avoid inflaming the situation until the onslaught abated. Timothy Snyder noted that it was only during the three months after the deportations of July–September 1942 that agreement on the need for armed resistance was reached.


  • Poland
    Jul, 1942

    Polish leaders in Warsaw had learned about the mass killing of Jews in Auschwitz

    Poland
    Jul, 1942

    By late July or early August 1942, Polish leaders in Warsaw had learned about the mass killing of Jews in Auschwitz, according to Fleming.


  • Poland
    1942

    Germans began building additional camps and gas chambers

    Poland
    1942

    At the end of 1941 in occupied Poland, the Germans began building additional camps or expanding existing ones. Auschwitz, for example, was expanded in October 1941 by building Auschwitz II-Birkenau a few kilometers away. chambers had been installed in these new facilities, except for Chełmno, which used gas vans.


  • Germany
    1942

    150–200 delivered non-Finnish Jews to Germany

    Germany
    1942

    In Finland, the government was pressured in 1942 to hand over its 150–200 non-Finnish Jews to Germany. After opposition from both the government and public, eight non-Finnish Jews were deported in late 1942; only one survived the war.


  • Odessa, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.
    Sunday Oct 18, 1942

    Odessa massacre

    Odessa, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.
    Sunday Oct 18, 1942

    The Romanian military killed up to 25,000 Jews during the Odessa massacre between 18 October 1941 and March 1942, assisted by gendarmes and the police.


  • Tunisia
    Nov, 1942

    Jews were subjected to forced labor in Tunisia

    Tunisia
    Nov, 1942

    Vichy France's government implemented anti-Jewish measures in French Algeria and the two French Protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco. Tunisia had 85,000 Jews when the Germans and Italians arrived in November 1942; an estimated 5,000 Jews were subjected to forced labor.


  • Poland
    Nov, 1942

    A lot bodies were dug up and burned

    Poland
    Nov, 1942

    Between September and November 1942, on the orders of Himmler, 100,000 bodies were dug up and burned. New gas chambers and crematoria were built to accommodate the numbers.


  • Oslo, Norway
    Thursday Nov 26, 1942

    532 Jews were taken by police officers to Oslo harbor

    Oslo, Norway
    Thursday Nov 26, 1942

    On 26 November 1942, 532 Jews were taken by police officers, at four o'clock in the morning, to Oslo harbor, where they boarded a German ship. From Germany, they were sent by freight train to Auschwitz. According to Dan Stone, only nine survived the war.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    Thursday Dec 10, 1942

    Edward Raczyński addressed the fledgling United Nations on the killings

    London, England, United Kingdom
    Thursday Dec 10, 1942

    On 10 December 1942, the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister, Edward Raczyński, addressed the fledgling United Nations on the killings; the address was distributed with the title The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland. He told them about the use of poison gas; about Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór; that the Polish underground had referred to them as extermination camps; and that tens of thousands of Jews had been killed in Bełżec in March and April 1942.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    Thursday Dec 17, 1942

    United Nations objected "bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination"

    London, England, United Kingdom
    Thursday Dec 17, 1942

    On 17 December 1942, 11 Allies issued the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations condemning the "bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination".


  • Poland
    Feb, 1943

    Treblinka extermination camp

    Poland
    Feb, 1943

    Treblinka was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, 4 km (2.5 mi) south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship.


  • Warsaw, Poland
    Friday Apr 16, 1943

    Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

    Warsaw, Poland
    Friday Apr 16, 1943

    The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Majdanek and Treblinka death camps.


  • Poland
    1943

    Auschwitz concentration camp

    Poland
    1943

    By 1943, it was evident to the armed forces' leadership that Germany was losing the war. The mass murder continued nevertheless, reaching a "frenetic" pace in 1944 when Auschwitz gassed nearly 500,000 people.


  • Białystok, Poland
    Monday Aug 16, 1943

    Białystok Ghetto

    Białystok, Poland
    Monday Aug 16, 1943

    In the Białystok Ghetto on 16 August, Jewish insurgents fought for five days when the Germans announced mass deportations.


  • Poznań, Poland
    Wednesday Oct 6, 1943

    Himmler ordered that women and children be shot

    Poznań, Poland
    Wednesday Oct 6, 1943

    In a speech on 6 October 1943 to party leaders, Heinrich Himmler said he had ordered that women and children be shot, but Peter Longerich and Christian Gerlach write that the murder of women and children began at different times in different areas, suggesting local influence.


  • Sobibór, Poland
    Thursday Oct 14, 1943

    Jewish prisoners attempted escape

    Sobibór, Poland
    Thursday Oct 14, 1943

    On 14 October, Jewish prisoners in Sobibór attempted an escape, killing 11 SS officers, as well as two or three Ukrainian and Volksdeutsche guards. According to Yitzhak Arad, this was the highest number of SS officers killed in a single revolt.


  • Poland
    Wednesday Nov 3, 1943

    Operation Harvest Festival

    Poland
    Wednesday Nov 3, 1943

    The SS liquidated most of the Jewish ghettos of the General Government area of Poland in 1942–1943 and shipped their populations to the camps for extermination.


  • Poland
    Nov, 1943

    Jews died due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

    Poland
    Nov, 1943

    Between March 1942 and November 1943, around 1,526,500 Jews were gassed in these three camps in gas chambers using carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes of stationary diesel engines.


  • Hungary
    Sunday Mar 19, 1944

    Hitler ordered the military occupation of Hungary

    Hungary
    Sunday Mar 19, 1944

    On 19 March 1944, Hitler ordered the military occupation of Hungary and dispatched Adolf Eichmann to Budapest to supervise the deportation of the country's Jews.


  • Hungary
    Wednesday Mar 22, 1944

    Jews were required to wear the yellow star in Hungary

    Hungary
    Wednesday Mar 22, 1944

    From March 22nd, Jews were required to wear the yellow star; were forbidden from owning cars, bicycles, radios, or telephones; and were later forced into ghettos.


  • Croatia, Yugoslavia
    Tuesday Apr 18, 1944

    Croatia was declared as Judenfrei

    Croatia, Yugoslavia
    Tuesday Apr 18, 1944

    On 18 April 1944 Croatia was declared as Judenfrei. Approximately 55,000-60,000 Yugoslav Jews were killed in the Holocaust, representing nearly 80% of its pre-war population.


  • Poland
    May, 1944

    Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz II-Birkenau

    Poland
    May, 1944

    Between 15 May and 9 July, 437,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, almost all sent directly to the gas chambers.


  • Hungary
    May, 1944

    Jews were deported from Hungary

    Hungary
    May, 1944

    Between 15 May and early July 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported from Hungary, mostly to Auschwitz, where most of them were gassed; there were four transports a day, each carrying 3,000 people.


  • Lublin, Poland
    Tuesday Jul 25, 1944

    Majdanek encountered by Allied troops

    Lublin, Poland
    Tuesday Jul 25, 1944

    The first major camp to be encountered by Allied troops, Majdanek, was discovered by the advancing Soviets, along with its gas chambers, on 25 July 1944.


  • Warsaw, Poland
    Tuesday Aug 1, 1944

    Warsaw Uprising

    Warsaw, Poland
    Tuesday Aug 1, 1944

    Jews also joined Polish forces, including the Home Army. According to Timothy Snyder, "more Jews fought in the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 than in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943.".


  • Poland
    Saturday Oct 7, 1944

    The Jews arranged an uprising in Auschwitz

    Poland
    Saturday Oct 7, 1944

    On 7 October 1944, 300 Jewish members, mostly Greek or Hungarian, of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz learned they were about to be killed, and staged an uprising, blowing up crematorium IV. Three SS officers were killed.


  • Hungary
    Oct, 1944

    A lot of Jews died on the march to the Austrian border

    Hungary
    Oct, 1944

    In Budapest in October and November 1944, the Hungarian Arrow Cross forced 50,000 Jews to march to the Austrian border as part of a deal with Germany to supply forced labor. So many died that the marches were stopped.


  • Poland
    Jan, 1945

    Death marches to camps in Germany and Austria

    Poland
    Jan, 1945

    As the Soviet armed forces advanced, the SS closed down the camps in eastern Poland and made efforts to conceal what had happened. The gas chambers were dismantled, the crematoria dynamited, and the mass graves dug up and corpses cremated. From January to April 1945, the SS sent inmates westward on "death marches" to camps in Germany and Austria.


  • Poland
    Saturday Jan 27, 1945

    Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets

    Poland
    Saturday Jan 27, 1945

    On 17 January 1945, 58,000 Auschwitz inmates were sent on a death march westwards; when the camp was liberated by the Soviets on 27 January, they found just 7,000 inmates in the three main camps and 500 in subcamps.


  • Weimar, Germany
    Wednesday Apr 11, 1945

    Buchenwald was liberated

    Weimar, Germany
    Wednesday Apr 11, 1945

    Buchenwald was liberated by the Americans on 11 April.


  • Germany
    Sunday Apr 15, 1945

    Bergen-Belsen was liberated

    Germany
    Sunday Apr 15, 1945

    Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British on 15 April.


  • United Kingdom
    Thursday Apr 19, 1945

    Belsen report "Victims of The Holocaust on Belsen"

    United Kingdom
    Thursday Apr 19, 1945

    The British 11th Armoured Division found around 60,000 prisoners (90 percent Jews) when they liberated Bergen-Belsen, as well as 13,000 unburied corpses; another 10,000 people died from typhus or malnutrition over the following weeks. The BBC's war correspondent Richard Dimbleby described the scenes that greeted him and the British Army at Belsen, in a report so graphic the BBC declined to broadcast it for four days, and did so, on 19 April, only after Dimbleby threatened to resign.


  • Germany
    Monday Apr 30, 1945

    Ravensbrück was liberated

    Germany
    Monday Apr 30, 1945

    Ravensbrück was liberated by the Soviets on 30 April.


  • Germany
    May, 1945

    250,000 had died during death marches

    Germany
    May, 1945

    In January 1945, the Germans held records of 714,000 inmates in concentration camps; by May, 250,000 (35 percent) had died during death marches.


  • Czechia
    Thursday May 3, 1945

    Red Cross took control of Theresienstadt

    Czechia
    Thursday May 3, 1945

    The Red Cross took control of Theresienstadt on 3 May.


  • Israel
    1951

    Yom HaShoah

    Israel
    1951

    Yom HaShoah became Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1951.


  • Israel
    Mar, 1951

    Israel asked for compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany

    Israel
    Mar, 1951

    The government of Israel requested $1.5 billion from the Federal Republic of Germany in March 1951 to finance the rehabilitation of 500,000 Jewish survivors, arguing that Germany had stolen $6 billion from the European Jews.


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