holocaust timeline 2

8/14/2019 Holocaust Timeline 2

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What is the Holocaust?The Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal eventin 20th century history: the state-sponsored,systematic persecution and annihilation ofEuropean Jews by Nazi Germany and itscollaborators between 1933 and 1945.

Jews were the primary victims; 6 million weremurdered; Gypsies, Poles, and people withdisabilities were also targeted for destruction basedon racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more,including homosexuals, Jehovahs Witnesses, Soviet

prisoners of war and political dissidents, also


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The Holocaust was not just theconsequence of unbridled bigotry.

There were many, many factors that

contributed to the Holocaust, which we willcover as we discuss the timeline of events.

Just because it happened does not mean itwas inevitable! The Holocaust took place

because individuals, groups and nationsmade decisions to act or not to act.


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1933: Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt bothcame to office in 1933 to lead nations uncertain oftheir future. President Roosevelt said in hisinaugural address: We have nothing to fear but

fear itself. Jews in Germany were soon to learnthe meaning of fear.

Franklin

DelanoRoosevelt Adolf Hitler


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Hitler came to power legally. Violence and terror, which

paved the way for his rise, intensified when Hitler wasappointed Chancellor on Jan. 30th.

Who was Adolf Hitler??He was an Austrian-born German politician andthe leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party(abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He

was the totalitarian leader of Germany from 1933 to 1945,serving as chancellor from 1933 to 1945 and as head of state(Fhrer) from 1934 to 1945

Hitler gained support by promoting Germannationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-

communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda.Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absoluteNazi German hegemony in Europe. To achieve this, hepursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing livingspace for the Aryan people; directing the resources of the statetowards this goal.


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All of the following contributed to theHolocaust:Hitler fed on centuries-old bigotry and anti-Semitism

that was renewed by a nationalistic fervor that

emerged in Europe after the latter half of thenineteenth century.

Germanys defeat in World War I and its self-perceived humiliation following the Treaty ofVersailles was exacerbated by worldwide economichard times.

Hitlers political charisma and the manipulativepropaganda of the Nazi regime.

The causes of the Holocaust cannot be reduced to just

one or two catalysts-- many factors came into play,and the cannot be sin led out one from another.


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Within Hitlers first month as chancellor: freedomof speech was suspended, freedom of assemblywas restricted, freedom of the press was ended.

On March 22nd, the Dachau concentration campopened.

On April 1st, Jewish businesses and officesthroughout Germany were boycotted. *

On April 7th, Jews were expelled from the CivilService.*

On April 26th, the Gestapo was established.

On May 10th, Nazi students stormed universities,libraries and bookstores throughout Germany.Hundreds of thousands of books were cast ontobonfires. Some of these books were by Jewish


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On July 14th, East European Jewishimmigrants were stripped of German

citizenship. On the same day, theNazi party became the only politicalparty allowed in Germany.

1934: Nazi rule was consolidated andthe policies that formed the basis ofthe German persecution of the Jews

were implemented. Before the springsemester concluded, non-Aryanmedical students were prohibitedfrom taking state medical exams,and Jewish students in Germanycould not receive tuition exemptions.

In August, German President Paulvon Hindenburg died; Hitlersdictatorship was firmly established.Within three weeks, all officials andsoldiers in the Armed Forces had to

swear allegiance to Hitler personally,not to the people or the fatherland.


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At the September Nazi Party Congress inNuremburg, Hitler proclaimed to 200,000 politicalleaders that the National Socialist Revolution wascompleted and that Germany would not experienceanother one for the next thousand years.

By December, Bavarian justice minister Hans Frankwas named to Hitlers cabinet and assigned to alignGerman law with Nazi goals and ideology.

1935: At the annual Nazi party rally in Nuremburg,the German Parliament decreed the two laws thatbecame the centerpiece of Hitlers anti-Jewishlegislation: The Law for the Protection ofGerman Blood and Honor, and the ReichCitizenship Law.

Citizenship in the Reich was restricted to persons ofGerman or kindred blood. Only German citizens


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To protect German blood and honor,marriages and sexual relationsbetween Jews and citizens of Germanor related blood were prohibited, aswas the employment of women underthe age of 45 in Jewish households.

For the first time in history, Jews werepersecuted not for the religion theypracticed or the beliefs they affirmed,but by the blood of their grandparents.

1936: The Berlin Olympic Gamesforced Germany to soften some visiblesigns of anti-Semitism in an effort toavoid an American boycott of theGames. Hitler was determined to usethe games to enhance his internationalprestige and his hold on the Germanpeople.

The summer Olympic games were a


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Before the school year began, non-Aryanteachers were forbidden to teach.By mid-fall, the Berlin-Rome Axis agreement

was signed by Hitler and Italian fascistdictator Benito Mussolini.1937: In the spring, Jews were prohibited from

giving testimony in courts of law.*

In July, a concentration camp at Buchenwaldwas opened.In December, the Nuremberg Laws were

expanded: A German married to a non-Aryan

could not salute the Nazi flag.


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1938: On March 12th, Germany enteredAustria, welcomed by the nativepopulation. Austria was incorporated intothe Reich.

Jews were not welcomed in many places:The United States refugee quotas wererigidly enforced, Britain was unwilling tochange its restrictive immigration policiesand French transit camps were set up tocontain the refugees.

The Germans concluded: We wanted toget rid of our Jews but no country wished


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On November 9th,violence eruptedthroughout the Reich.Within 48 hours,approximately 1,300hours synagogues wereburned, along with their

Torah scrolls, Bibles, andprayer books; 30,000

Jews were arrested andsent to concentrationcamps; 7,000 businesseswere smashed andlooted; 236 Jews werekilled; and Jewishcemeteries, hospitals,schools and homes weredestroyed.

This came to be known

euphemistically asKristallnacht, the Night of


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1939: In a speech marking his 6th anniversary in office, Hitler said if warerupts it would mean the annihilation ofEuropean Jews.The British restricted emigration to

Palestine. Neutral Switzerland asked thatpassports of Jews in Germany be markedwith the letter J for Jude. *The United States closed its doors to

refugees.In May, a ship set sail for Cuba with 936Jewish refugees. The Cuban governmentrefused to honor their visas. The captain


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On September 1st,Germany invadedPoland. World WarII began. The war

was needed, Hitlerargued, for livingspace for theGerman nation.*

More than 2 million Jews came under German control

in September.Mass murder also began in 1939-- not of Jews, but ofphysically and developmentally disabled Germans,considered embarrassments to the master race. *On October 28th, the first Polish ghetto, to confine

Jews, was established in Piotrkow. *


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1940: On April 9th, Germany invaded Denmarkand Norway.

On May 10th, German armies approached Francethrough Belgium and the Netherlands in a

Blitzkrieg, a lightening war. Netherlands andBelgium were conquered. The French armyretreated. On June 10th, Paris fell.

Throughout Western Europe, the Nazis followed a

familiar pattern: Jews were segregated andmarked, their businesses were confiscated andthey were barred from public schools and publicplaces.


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Within weeks of the Nazi

conquest, Jews in Polandwere forced to wearyellow armbands withyellow stars. Soon theirmovements were also

restricted.Later in the year, the

ghettos of Warsaw andLodz were sealed.*Guards were posted at

the entrance and exits.Permission forms wererequired to enter orleave.

On May 20th, theconcentration camp atAuschwitz was established.

The sign above the camp

reads: Work Makes OneFree


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1941: The mass murder of Jews began in 1941. * On June21st, the German army invaded Soviet territory, andmobile killing units were dispatched on specialassignment to kill Jews.

The invasion was followed immediately by the roundup of

Jews, but not only Jews; Roma (Gypsies), political leadersand intellectuals were also killed. Those rounded up weremarched to the outskirts of the city where they were shot.

Their bodies were buried in mass graves-- large ditchesfilled with bodies of people who had been shot one by one

and buried layer upon layer.


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Frequently, local attacks, known aspogroms, were encouraged. Some localresidents even volunteered for pogroms.

On September 19th, the German armycaptured Kiev. Days later, Kievs Jewswere marched to Babi Yar, 2 miles fromthe city center. They were forced to stripand their clothing and belongings weregathered and folded. Rings and jewelrywere ripped from the Jews. They werethen lined up and shot, and fell into the

ravine. The sounds could be heard inKiev.Two-year-old Mania

Halef, a Jewish childmurdered by the SSduring the massexecutions at Babi Yarin September 1941.


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In the days between Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur,33,771 Jews were killed at Babi Yar-- just one exampleof the genocide. Before this phase ended, more than 1.2million Jews were killed.

Meanwhile, a new stage of mass killing was justbeginning:

In September, there were experiments at Auschwitzwith gas chambers and Zyklon B. *

On December 8th, actual gassing of Jews had begun

in mobile vans at Chelmo death camp. Stationary gaschambers were being erected at Auschwitz andBelzec.


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On December 11th, the United States declared war on Japanand Germany.*

1942: In January, Richard Heydrich convened a meeting ofprominent Nazi leaders. He announced a plan for the finalsolution, the systemic murder of European Jews.*

Throughout the warm summer days and the cool days ofautumn, train after train from ghetto after ghetto arrived atthe death camps. At Majdanek and Auschwitz there was aselection: the old, infirm, and mothers and their children weresent to the gas chambers. The able-bodied went to work.

At the death camps in Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka, the fateof all was equal: there was no reprieve, even for those whocould work.


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In August, word of the Final Solution reached the United States.Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress Representative inBern, Switzerland, sent a secret cable on August 11th throughsecure channels to the State Department:

there has been and is being considered in Hitlersheadquarters a plan to exterminate all Jews from Germany andGerman controlled areas in Europe after they have beenconcentrated in the east. The numbers involved is said to bebetween three and a half and four million and the object topermanently settle the Jewish question in Europe.

The State Department refused to act until the information could

be confirmed. In November, they regretfully confirmed hisdarkest fear.


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1943: The violence unleashed in the first two years ofthe Final Solution intensified in 1943.

The Warsaw Ghetto was burned to the ground after amonth of fierce resistance fighting.*

Warsaw was the first ghetto to rise in resistance-- byyears end, five other camps saw revolts and even someprisoners escape. The majority of those who escapedwere captured and shot.

It was also a year of deportations: the ghettos of Poland

were emptied; Jews were deported from Germany,Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Yugoslavia.


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On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, theorder was given to deport the Jews ofDenmark, but the Danish population wouldnot consent. In a series of clandestineoperations, the Jews of Denmark were ferriedto freedom in Sweden.

In Eastern Europe, the Jews had been

annihilated. A special operation was launchedto dig up bodies that had been buried inmass graves and to burn them, so nophysical evidence of the crime would remain.

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and BritishPrime Minister Winston Churchill met atCasablanca and declared the unconditional

surrender of Germany as the war aim.


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1944: By the beginning of 1944, one could see the end of the ThirdReich. The Soviet Army was advancing, and the Allies weremarching through Italy. The killing of Jews went on, however, itspace quickened by the looming end.*

In March, Germany occupied its ally, Hungary. In only 60 days,Hungarian Jews met the fate of the Jews of Europe. Between May

14th and July 8th, 437,402 Jews were deported mainly to Auschwitzon 147 trains.

The U.S. Refugee Board sough international help. Sweden was theonly country to answer the call. Raoul Wallenberg led the rescueoperation. He immediately began giving Jews impressive-looking

passports bearing the Swedish seal. During the summer, Soviet forces overran Belzec, Treblinka, and

Sobibor, killing centers that had been closed a year earlier when theannihilation of Polish Jews was virtually complete. The Nazis hadburned Treblinka and turned it into a farm. At Belzec, pine trees hadbeen planted to conceal the camp. Still, Soviet soldiers found bones

protruding from the ground.


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On July 23rd, Soviet troopsarrived at the death camp ofMajdanek, just outside thePolish city of Lublin. As theSoviet Army advanced to theoutskirts of Lublin, the Nazis

hastened to hide, bury, andburn the evidence of theircrime. They simply ran out oftime.

The Soviets found a

storehouse of 800,000shoes-- and survivors readyto testify.


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1945: Roosevelt, Churchill, andStalin met for a final time in Yalta,at the Soviet Union, to discuss thepost-war aim of de-NazifyingGermany.

At the Birkenau death camp, Nazi

demolition squads frantically hidevidence of mass murder bydismantling crematoria and gaschambers. Storehouses andrecords were burned. To avoidcapture of the inmates-- livingwitnesses-- 60,000 prisoners were

hastily evacuated to concentrationcamps. In the harsh Polish winter,they walked without food orshelter in what came to be calleddeath marches.


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On January 27th, Soviet forcesentered Auschwitz.*

They found 348,820 mens suits,836,255 womens coats, and morethan seven tons of human hair. Hair cut from the dead and

recycled into haircloth for usein officers' uniforms.

Since 1942, between 1.1 millionand 1.3 million Jews andthousands of Soviet prisoners of

war, Poles and Gypsies had beenmurdered there.

Liberation revealed themagnitude of the loss.*


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The Nazis found 800 Jews left inCzestochowa, Poland, from the cityspre-war Jewish population of 28,500.In Kielce, 25 Jews were left from apre-war population of 24,000. InCracow, only a few Jews were alive inwhat had once been the home of60,000 Jews. And in Lodz, 877 Jewswere found alive, from a ghetto of164,000.

The evacuations of concentrationcamps continued until the end of thewar. Forty thousand prisoners wereforced to march, thousands weremurdered en route, the remainderarrived at numerous concentrationcamps.


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As the Soviet army encircled Stutthofconcentration camp, the Nazis began thefinal evacuation of the camps 4,500remaining prisoners. The prisoners wereshipped on ferries by way of the BalticSea; 200 female Jewish prisoners werethe first to be driven to the seashore andshot. Two thousand prisoners drowned or

were shot by the Nazis on the open sea. In April, advancing American and British

forces came upon the concentrationcamps. The Britsh army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and found58,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, all incritical condition; 13,000 corpses were

also found. During the next five days,14,000 prisoners died; in the followingfew weeks, another 14,000 perished.*


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In April, Roosevelt died andHitler committed suicide.*

In May, the Germanssurrendered to the Allies.Nazi General Alfred Jodl

signed an unconditionalsurrender at theheadquarters of U.S. GeneralDwight Eisenhower.

On May 8th, V.E. Day, the

war in Europe officiallyended.*


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Some 30 million Europeans,soldiers, and civilians, werecasualties of World War II.Among the dead were some 6million Jews, victims of theHolocaust, along with millions

of Soviet prisoners of war,hundreds of thousands ofGypsies, Poles and disabledpeople, thousands ofJehovahs Witnesses,homosexuals, and others.

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