Download Timeline of the Holocaust

Timeline
1933
30 January
Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany
28 February
German government takes away freedom of speech, assembly, press, and freedom
from invasion of privacy (mail, telephone, telegraph) and from house search without
warrant.
4 March
Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated President of the United States
20 March
First concentration camp opens at Dachau, Germany, for political opponents of the
regime.
1 April
Nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany is carried out under
Nazi leadership.
7 April
Law excludes “non-Aryans” from government employment; Jewish civil servants,
including university professors and schoolteachers, are fired in Germany.
10 May
Books written by Jews, political opponents of Nazis, and many others are burned
during huge public rallies across Germany.
14 July
Law passed in Germany permitting the forced sterilization of Gypsies, the mentally
and physically disabled, African-Germans, and others considered “inferior” or
“unfit”.
1934
October
First major wave of arrests of homosexuals occurs throughout Germany, continuing
into November.
1935
17 March
Hitler’s army invades the Rhineland.
April
Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned from all civil service jobs and are arrested
throughout Germany.
15 September
Nuremberg Laws “of “Blood and Honor” Citizenship and racial laws are announced
at Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, and begin to be instituted.
1936
12 July
First German Gypsies are arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp.
Summer
Olympic Games take place in Berlin. Anti-Jewish signs are removed until the
Games are over.
1938
13 March
Austria is annexed by Germany.
6-15 July
Representatives from thirty-two countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee
policies. Most of the countries refuse to let in more Jewish refugees.
9-10 November
Nazis burn almost one thousand synagogues and loot Jewish homes and businesses
in nationwide pogroms called “Kristallnacht” (Night of Broken Glass). Nearly
30,000 German and Austrian Jewish men are deported to concentration camps.
Many Jewish women are jailed.
15 November
All Jewish children are expelled from public schools. Segregated Jewish schools are
created.
2-3 December
All Gypsies in the Reich are required to register with the police.
1939
15 March
German troops invade Czechoslovakia.
June
Cuba and the United States refuse to accept Jewish refugees aboard the ship S.S. St.
Louis, which is forced to return to Europe.
1 September
Germany invades Poland; World War II begins.
October
Hitler extends power of doctors to kill institutionalized mentally and physically
disabled persons in the “euthanasia” program.
1940
Spring
Germany invades and defeats Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland
and France.
October
Warsaw ghetto is established.
1941
22 March
Gypsy and African-German children are expelled from public schools in the Reich.
24 March
Germany invades North Africa.
6 April
German invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
22 June
German army invades the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads,
begin mass murders of Jews, Gypsies, and Communist leaders.
23 September
Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners are killed in Nazi tests of gas chambers
at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
28-29 September
Nearly 34,000 Jews are murdered by mobile killing squads at Babi Yar, near Kiev
(Ukraine).
October-November
First group of German and Austrian Jews are deported to ghettos in eastern
Europe.
7 December
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
8 December
Gassing operations begin at Chelmno “extermination” camp in occupied Poland.
11 December
Germany declares war on the United States.
1942
20 January
Fifteen Nazi and government leaders meet at Wannsee, a section of Berlin, to
discuss the “final solution to the Jewish question”.
1942
Nazi “extermination” camps located in occupied Poland at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Majdanek begin mass murder of Jews in gas
chambers.
1 June
Jews in France and Holland are required to wear identifying stars.
1943
19 April
Britain and United States meet at Bermuda Conference
19 April-16 May
Jews in the Warsaw ghetto resist with arms the Germans’ attempt to liquidate the
ghetto.
2 August
Inmates revolt at Treblinka
Fall
Danes use boats to smuggle most of the nation’s Jews to neutral Sweden.
14 October
Inmates at Sobibor begin armed revolt.
1944
January
President Roosevelt sets up the War Refugee Board at the urging of Treasury
Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
19 March
Germany occupies Hungary.
15 May-9 July
Over 430,000 Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of
them are gassed.
6 June
Allied powers invade western Europe on D-Day.
20 July
German officers fail in their attempt to assassinate Hitler.
23 July
Soviet troops liberate Majdanek concentration camp.
2 August
Nazis destroy the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau; around 3,000 Gypsies are
gassed.
7 October
Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt and blow up one crematorium.
1945
17 January
Nazis evacuate Auschwitz; prisoners begin “death marches” toward Germany.
27 January
Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz.
April
US troops liberate survivors at Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
30 April
Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
5 May
US troops liberate Mauthausen concentration camp.
7 May
Germany surrenders and the war ends in Europe.
November 1945-
War crime trials held at Nuremberg, Germany.
October 1946
1948
14 May
State of Israel is established.