1933
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Jan. 30 |
Adolf Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany |
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Feb. 27 |
Reichstag fire; Nazis unleash terror to ensure election results |
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March 20 |
First concentration camp - Dachau - established |
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March 23 |
Enabling Act - suspending civil liberties - passed by Nazi-dominated Reichstag |
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April 1 |
Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses; Jewish professionals barred from entering their offices and places of employment |
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April 7 |
First anti-Jewish decree, the “Law for the Reestablishment of the Civil Service” |
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April 26 |
Gestapo established |
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May 10 |
Public burnings of books authored by Jews, those of Jewish origin, and opponents of Nazism |
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Spring/Summer |
Universities and the arts “cleansed” of Jewish influence; Jewish professors expelled; Jewish writers and artists prohibited from practicing their professions |
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Spring/Summer |
Jewish organizations in America and Western Europe protest Nazi persecution of the Jews; a few call for boycott of Nazi Germany |
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1934
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June 30 |
“Night of the Long Knives;” Nazis purge leadership of storm troopers (SA) and opponents of Nazism |
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Aug. 2 |
Hitler named president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces following death of von Hindenburg |
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1935
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May 25 |
Germany renews conscription, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles |
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Sept. 15 |
“Nuremberg Laws,” anti-Jewish racial laws, enacted. Jews could no longer be German citizens, marry Aryans, fly the German flag or hire German maids under the age of 45 |
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Nov. 14 |
Germany defines Jews as anyone with three Jewish grandparents or someone with two Jewish grandparents who has identified himself/herself as a Jew in one of the following ways:
(a) belongs to the official Jewish community
(b) is married to a Jew
(c) is a child of a Jewish parent |
| 1936 |
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March 7 |
Germans march into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized according to Treaty of Versailles |
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Summer |
Berlin Olympics held |
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1938
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March 13 |
Anschluss, annexation of Austria by Germany; all German antisemitic decrees immediately applied in Austria |
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April 26 |
Jews in Reich must register all property with authorities |
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Aug. 17 |
Decrees revoke all name changes by Jews and force those Jews who did not have names recognized as Jewish by German authorities to add “Israel” (for males) and “Sarah” (for females) as middle names |
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Sept. 29-30 |
At Munich Conference, England and France agree to turn over Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia) to Germany |
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Oct. 5 |
Following request by the Swiss authorities, Germans order all Jews’ passports marked with a large red “J” to prevent Jews from smuggling themselves into Switzerland |
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Nov. 12 |
Decree forcing all Jews to transfer retail businesses to Aryan hands |
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Nov. 15 |
Numerus Nullus decree expels all Jewish pupils from German schools |
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1939
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Jan. 30 |
Hitler threatens in Reichstag speech that, if war erupts, it will mean the Vernichtung (extermination) of European Jews |
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March 15 |
Nazis occupy part of Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia) |
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Aug. 23 |
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pack signed; nonaggression pact between Russia and Germany |
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Sept. 1 |
Beginning of World War II; Germany invades Poland |
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Sept. 17 |
Russia invades Eastern Poland |
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Sept. 27 |
Jews in German-occupied Poland forced to wear distinguishing badge |
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Nov. 28 |
First ghetto in Poland established in Piotrków |
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| 1940 |
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April 9 |
Germans occupy Denmark and southern Norway |
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April 27 |
Himmler issues directive to establish a concentration camp at Auschwitz |
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May 7 |
Lodz ghetto closed off; approximately 165,000 inhabitants in 1.6 square miles |
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May 10 |
Germany invades Holland, Belgium and France |
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June 22 |
France surrenders to Nazi Germany |
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Aug. 8 |
Battle of Britain begin |
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Sept. 27 |
Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis forms |
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Nov. 15 |
Warsaw Ghetto sealed off; approximately 500,000 inhabitants |
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1941
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Jan. 21-26 |
Anti-Jewish riots in Romania by Iron Guard; hundreds of Jews butchered |
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March |
Adolf Eichmann appointed head of Gestapo section for Jewish affairs |
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April |
Germany occupies Greece and Yugoslavia |
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June |
Vichy government deprives Jews of French North Africa of their rights as citizens |
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June 22 |
Germany invades the Soviet Union |
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End of June |
Einsatzgruppen (special mobile killing units) carry out mass murder of Jews in areas of Soviet Union occupied by German army with the assistance of local police |
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July 31 |
Heydrich appointed by Goering as responsible for implementation of Final Solution |
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Sept. 1 |
Jews in Third Reich obligated to wear yellow Star of David as distinguishing mark |
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Sept. 3 |
First gassing with Zyklon B performed on 600 Soviet prisoners of war at Auschwitz |
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Sept. 28-29 |
Massacre of 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar, a ravine outside Kiev |
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Oct. |
Establishment of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp; site of mass extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and others |
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Dec. 7 |
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor |
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Dec. 8 |
Chelmno extermination camp begins operation; 340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and Czechs murdered there by April 1943 |
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| 1942 |
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Jan. 20 |
Wannsee Conference; Heydrich reveals official, systematic plan to murder all Jews |
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Jan. |
Jewish underground organizations established in Vilna Ghetto and Kovno Ghetto |
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March 1 |
Extermination by gas begins at Sobibor extermination camp; by October 1943, 250,000 murdered |
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Later March |
Deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp begin |
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June 1 |
Treblinka extermination camp begins operation; by August 1943, 700,000 Jews murdered |
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June |
Jewish Partisan unit established in forests of Byelorussia |
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July 28 |
Jewish fighting organization (ZOB) established in Warsaw Ghetto |
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Summer |
Deportation of Jews to extermination camps from Holland, Poland, France, Belgium and Croatia; armed resistance by Jews in ghettos of Kletzk, Wieswiez, Mir, Lackwa, Krements and Tuchin |
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Nov. |
Allied forces land in North Africa |
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Winter |
Deportation of Jews from Norway, Germany and Greece to extermination camps; Jewish partisan movement organize in forests near Lublin |
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1943
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Feb. 2 |
German advance in Russia stopped at Stalingrad |
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March |
Liquidation of Krakow Ghetto |
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April 19 |
Warsaw Ghetto revolt begins as Germans attempt to liquidate 70,000 ghetto inhabitants; Jewish underground fights Nazis until early June |
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June |
Himmler orders the liquidation of all the ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union |
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Summer |
Armed resistance by Jews in Czestochowa, Lvov, Bedzin, Bialystok and Tarnow ghettos |
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Aug. |
Armed revolt in Treblinka extermination camp |
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Fall |
Liquidation of large ghettos: Minsk, Vilna and Riga |
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Oct. 14 |
Armed revolt in Sobibor extermination camp |
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| 1944 |
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March 19 |
Germany occupies Hungary |
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May 15 |
Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews; by June 27, 38,000 sent to Auschwitz |
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June 6 |
Allied invasion of Normandy (D-Day) |
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Spring/Summer |
Soviet Army repels Nazi forces |
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July 20 |
Group of German officers attempts to assassinate Hitler |
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July 24 |
Russians liberate Majdanek extermination camp |
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Summer |
Liquidation of ghettos in Kovno (Kaunas), Shavil (Siauliai) and Lodz; inmates sent to extermination camps |
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Oct. 7 |
Revolt by inmates in Auschwitz results in one crematorium being blown up |
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Oct. 31 |
Remnants of Slovakian Jews deported to Auschwitz |
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Nov. 2 |
Gassing ceases at Auschwitz |
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Nov. 8 |
Beginning of death march for approximately 40,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria |
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Nov. |
Last Jews deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz |
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1945 |
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Jan. 17 |
Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of death march for 66,000 camp inmates |
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Jan. 25 |
Beginning of death march for 50,000 inmates of Stutthof |
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April 3-4 |
Beginning of death march for 30,000 inmates of Buchenwald |
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April |
Soviet Army enters Germany from East; Allies enter from West |
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April 30 |
Hitler commits suicide |
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May 8 |
Germany surrenders; ending the Third Reich |
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Source: |
Grobman, Alex and Daniel Landes, eds. “Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust,” Los Angeles: Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1983, pp. 134-140.
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