Download 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

TIME LINE
1933 —1945
JANUARY 30, 1933:
PRESIDENT HINDENBURG APPOINTS
ADOLF HITLER
CHANCELLOR OF
GERMANY.
MARCH 20, 1933: SS
OPENS THE DACHAU
CONCENTRATION
CAMP OUTSIDE OF
MUNICH.
APRIL 1, 1933:
BOYCOTT OF JEWISHOWNED SHOPS AND
BUSINESSES IN GERMANY.
SEPTEMBER 15, 1935:
NUREMBERG RACE
LAWS.
MARCH 7, 1936:
GERMAN TROOPS
MARCH UNOPPOSED
INTO THE RHINELAND.
NOVEMBER 9/10, 1938:
KRISTALLNACHT
MARCH 11-13, 1938:
GERMANY INCORPORATES AUSTRIA IN
THE ANSCHLUSS
(UNION).
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939:
OCTOBER 8, 1939:
GERMANS ESTABLISH
GHETTO IN PIOTRKÓW
TRYBUNALSKI, POLAND. (FROM 1939 –
1941 365 GHETTOS WERE
ESTABLISHED ACROSS
EUROPE).
GERMANY INVADES
POLAND, STARTING
WORLD WAR II IN EUROPE.
70th Anniversary of the
Liberation of Auschwitz
View of the main entrance to the Auschwitz camp: "Arbeit
Macht Frei" (Work makes one free). Image courtesy of Instytut
Pamieci Narodowej
ADOLF HITLER
As chancellor in 1933 and later Fuhrer in 1934, Hitler
enacted swift change via the Nazi party to Germany’s
political, social, and economic structure. He promoted Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism. He cited capitalism and communism as
part of the Jewish agenda.
From 1931 – 1941 Jews were confined to ghettos. In
1941 Germany invaded the Soviet union, and the Nazis fashioned a plan, the” Final Solution to the Jewish
Question,” which was orchestrated by Heinrich
Himmler.
APRIL 9 & MAY 10TH,
1940: GERMANY INVADES DENMARK AND
NORWAY AND ATTACKS
WESTERN EUROPE
(FRANCE AND THE LOW
COUNTRIES).
JULY 10, 1940: BATTLE
OF BRITAIN BEGINS.
JUNE 22, 1941: GERMANY INVADES THE SOVIET UNION.
JULY 6, 1941:
EINSATZGRUPPEN
(MOBILE KILLING
UNITS) SHOOT NEARLY
3,000 JEWS AT THE
SEVENTH FORT, ONE
OF THE 19TH-CENTURY
FORTIFICATIONS SURROUNDING KOVNO.
AUGUST 3, 1941: BISHOP CLEMENS AUGUST
GRAF VON GALEN OF
MUENSTER DENOUNCES THE “EUTHANASIA”
KILLING PROGRAM IN A
PUBLIC SERMON.
NOVEMBER 7, 1941:
EINSATZGRUPPEN
ROUND UP 13,000 JEWS
FROM THE MINSK
GHETTO AND KILL
THEM IN NEARBY TUCHINKI (TUCHINKA).
NOVEMBER 30, 1941:
EINSATZGRUPPEN
SHOOT 10,000 JEWS
FROM THE RIGA GHETTO IN THE RUMBULA
FOREST.
DECEMBER 6, 1941:
SOVIET WINTER COUNTEROFFENSIVE.
THE "FINAL SOLUTION"
The “Final Solution” was the name of the Nazi plan to exterminate Jewish people. The origin
of the plan is uncertain. However, it was the final product after many years of Adolph Hitler’s
Nazi policies culminating in the systematic extermination of the Jews. Holocaust or Shoah is
the term given to the genocide of Jews between 1941 and 1945. About six million Jews were
killed as well as five million other non-Jews.
The Nazi party rose to power in 1933 and began a series of anti-Jewish legislation (over 400
dictates that impacted both their private and public lives). Once World War II had commenced in 1939, the creation of these policies escalated and evolved into a plan to segregate
and later terminate the European Jewish population.
The initial implementation of the “Final Solution” occurred after the invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941, when mobile killing units, Einsatzgruppen, killed over 1.5 million Jews.
KRISTALLNACHT
DECEMBER 7, 1941: JAPAN BOMBS PEARL
HARBOR AND THE
UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR THE
NEXT DAY.
On November 9th - 10th ,1938, an outburst of violence known as Kristallnacht, “Night of
Crystal,” also called “Night of Broken Glass,” took place. Homes and businesses were
plundered and destroyed in what the Germans claimed was a response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official stationed in Paris, by a displaced
Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan. The destruction claimed 267 synagogues across
Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland and over 7,500 Jewish owned businesses were
looted and destroyed.
DECEMBER 11, 1941:
NAZI GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON THE
UNITED STATES.
MARCH 27, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN THE DEPORTATION OF MORE
THAN 65,000 JEWS
FROM DRANCY, OUTSIDE PARIS, TO THE
EAST (PRIMARILY TO
AUSCHWITZ).
JULY 22, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN THE MASS
DEPORTATION OF OVER
300,000 JEWS FROM
THE WARSAW GHETTO
TO THE TREBLINKA
KILLING CENTER.
APRIL 19, 1943: WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
BEGINS.
NOVEMBER 6, 1943:
SOVIET TROOPS LIBERATE KIEV.
JANUARY 16, 1942:
GERMANS BEGIN THE
MASS DEPORTATION OF
MORE THAN 65,000
JEWS FROM LODZ TO
THE CHELMNO KILLING
CENTER.
JULY 15, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN MASS DEPORTATIONS OF NEARLY 100,000 JEWS FROM
THE OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS TO THE EAST
(PRIMARILY TO AUSCHWITZ).
SEPTEMBER 12, 1942:
GERMANS COMPLETE
THE MASS DEPORTATION OF ABOUT
265,000 JEWS FROM
WARSAW TO TREBLINKA.
OCTOBER 1, 1943: RESCUE OF JEWS IN DENMARK.
THE CAMPS
In 1933, the first concentration camps were built; all threats to the state as well as the deviant
and diseased were imprisoned. Dachau was the first camp established, but there were relatively few Jews in the camp initially, the number increased drastically following Kristallnacht.
Between 1933 and 1945 about 20,000 camps were constructed; these facilities served various
functions and included labor camps, temporary transit stations, and death camps. The first
camps intended to contain prisoners of the state were called “concentration camps,” because
they confined these undesirables to a specific place. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939,
forced-labor camps were constructed, and after the invasion of the Soviet Union POW (prisoner
-of-war) camps were constructed, some near previously existing concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
The killing centers were constructed in Poland, which had the largest Jewish population. These
were facilities engineered for the mass, well-organized extermination of individuals. There
were four gas chambers at Birkenau, which was the killing facility at Auschwitz. About 6,000
Jews were killed each day at the height of Jewish deportations. Very few of those imprisoned
survived.
MARCH 19, 1944: GERMAN FORCES OCCUPY
HUNGARY.
AUSCHWITZ
MAY 15, 1944: GER-
JUNE 6, 1944: D-DAY:
ALLIED FORCES INVADE
NORMANDY, FRANCE.
MANS BEGIN THE
MASS DEPORTATION
OF ABOUT 440,000
JEWS FROM HUNGARY.
JULY 25, 1944: ANGLO-
JUNE 22, 1944: THE
AMERICAN FORCES
BREAK OUT OF NORMANDY.
AUGUST 15, 1944: ALLIED FORCES LAND IN
SOUTHERN FRANCE.
DECEMBER 16, 1944:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE.
JANUARY 18, 1945:
DEATH MARCH OF NEARLY 60,000 PRISONERS
FROM THE AUSCHWITZ
CAMP SYSTEM IN
SOUTHERN POLAND.
Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp established, and it incorporated three forced
labor camps, one of which functioned as a killing center. The camp was split in 1943 but later
united in 1944 and renamed Monowitz. Like many camps of its kind, Auschwitz was built to
house prisoners who were believed to be a threat to Nazi rule, to provide a labor force, and to
function as killing facilities for those seen as threats to the safety and welfare of the state. Approximately 1.1 million Jews from across Europe were transported to the facility. Birkenau
housed the first Zyklon B gas chamber and three large crematoriums. The mass killings continued at this facility until November of 1944. At least 960,000 Jews were killed at Auschwitz.
SOVIETS LAUNCH AN
OFFENSIVE IN EASTERN BELORUSSIA
(BELARUS).
AUGUST 1, 1944: WARSAW POLISH UPRISING
BEGINS.
AUGUST 25, 1944: LIBERATION OF PARIS.
JANUARY 12, 1945: SOVIET WINTER OFFENSIVE.
JANUARY 25, 1945:
DEATH MARCH OF
NEARLY 50,000 PRISONERS FROM THE
STUTTHOF CAMP SYSTEM IN NORTHERN POLAND.
Main entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Poland, date uncertain. Image courtesy of
Beit Lohamei Haghettaot
LIBERATION
In mid-January 1945, the SS troops overseeing Auschwitz began to evacuate the
facility as the Soviet army approached in
what would later be called “death
marches.” Approximately 15,000 died
during the withdrawal to other facilities.
Soviet forces arrived on January 27th 1945
and liberated nearly 7,000 prisoners,
many of whom were sick or dying. After
the liberation, portions of Auschwitz
functioned as a hospital for many of the
ill prisoners.
JANUARY 27, 1945: SOVIET TROOPS LIBERATE
THE AUSCHWITZ CAMP
COMPLEX.
APRIL 16, 1945: THE
SOVIETS LAUNCH THEIR
FINAL OFFENSIVE, ENCIRCLING BERLIN.
APRIL 30, 1945: ADOLF
HITLER COMMITS SUICIDE.
JEWISH
POPULATION
In 1933 the Jewish population was estimated at 9.5 million, and 60% of these
individuals lived throughout Europe. By
1950, there were 3.5 million Jews, and
51% lived in the Americas. Only one
third lived in Europe (American Jewish
Yearbook).
Today there are about 15 million Jews
worldwide, with most of these individuals living either in Israel or the United
States (Berkley Center for Religion,
Peace & World Affairs).
MARCH 7, 1945: US
TROOPS CROSS THE
Voices From Auschwitz
Born: 1921, Lodz, Poland
Mr. Schneiderman, along with his family, was
forced into a ghetto in Lodz in 1939 after the Germans invaded. He was later deported to Auschwitz in 1944, when the ghetto was liquidated.
From Auschwitz he was sent to the Gross-Rosen
camp and later transferred to Ebenss, which was
liberated in 1945.
RHINE RIVER AT
REMAGEN.
APRIL 29, 1945: AMERICAN FORCES LIBERATE
THE DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP.
MAY 7 - MAY 9, 1945:
GERMANY SURRENDERS
TO THE WESTERN
ALLIES AND TO THE
SOVIETS.
Born: 1925, Korosmezo, Czechoslovakia
Cecilie was the youngest of 6 children. In
1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary,
her family was transported to a ghetto in
Huszt and later transported to Auschwitz. She
and her sister were sent to a labor camp, but
the rest of her family were gassed on arrival.
She worked in several labor camps before
Allied troops liberated her in 1945.