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Holocaust timeline

Before the Holocaust: 1933-1941
The Holocaust: 1941-1945
Aftermath: 1945-
Links: Other timelines

Before the Holocaust: 1933-1941

1933

	30 January	Adolf Hitler becomes German Reich Chancellor.
	4 March	The first concentration camp is established in Dachau, near Munich. Political opponents of the new regime make up the first inmates.
	1 April	The Nazis initiate a national boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.
	7 April	Jews in public jobs are dismissed, including schoolteachers and university professors.
	10 May	Books written by Jewish authors and opponents of the regime are burned in public.
	14 July	Legislation is adopted, which allows for forced sterilisation of gypsies, handicapped, afro-Germans and others considered ‘below the level of the Aryan race’.

1934

	July	Control of the concentration camps is taken over by the SS.
	2 August	Hitler proclaims himself Fuehrer of the Third Reich following the death of Reich President von Hindenburg.

1935

	May	Signs saying ‘Jews not allowed’ are posted outside German villages and outside restaurants and shops.
	15 September	The Nuremberg Laws rid the Jews of their basic civil rights.

1936

	12 July	German gypsies are arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. The concentration camp of Sachsenhausen is established.
	1-16 August	The Olympic Games are held in Berlin. Anti-Semitic signs have been removed in advance. Germany fields one Jewish athlete, Helene Mayer.
	15 October	‘Non-Aryan’ teachers are prohibited from teaching in public schools.

1937

	16 July	The concentration camp of Buchenwald is established.
	16 November	Jews can only leave Germany under special circumstances.

1938

	13 March	The Anschluss - Germany occupies Austria.
	April	Jews are gradually excluded from the financial sector.
	15 June	‘Operation Anti-social’: Jews with a criminal record are sent to concentration camps.
	6-15 July	Unsuccessful conference in Evian about the international society’s reception of Jewish refugees from Germany. Most of the 32 participating countries refuse to receive Jews from Germany.
	23 July	The German government orders that Jews carry identity papers at all times.
	17 August	All Jews have to take a certain middle name: ‘Israel’ for men and ‘Sarah’ for women.
	October	All Jews have their passport stamped with a red ‘J’.
	7 November	A young German Jew, Herschel Grünzpan, tries to assasinate a German diplomat in Paris.
	9-10 November	The Night of Broken Glass: Centrally directed pogrom against the Jews, their synagogues, shops and private homes. 7,500 Jewish shops are vandalised or looted. 30,000 Jews are arrested and placed in concentration camps. 90 Jews die.
	12 November	The German Jews are ordered to pay a compensation of 1 billion Reichsmark – for the damage done to the Jews themselves.
	December	Jewish driver’s licenses are deemed invalid, Jews are forced to sell their businesses, and Jews are no longer allowed to study at the universities.

1939

	January	All Jewish organisations are abolished by law. Jews are prohibited from working in the health sector.
	15 March	Germany invades and occupies Czechoslovakia.
	1 September	Germany invades Poland. World War II is a reality.
	2 September	The concentration camp of Stutthof is established.
	21 September	Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Security Police, orders that all Jews in Poland and Czechoslovakia must be gathered in ghettos.
	October	Hitler authorises the Euthanasia Programme (Operation T4) – the mercy killings of physically and mentally disabled Germans.
	23 November	All Polish Jews have to wear a yellow Star of David on their chest or a blue and white armband.
	28 November	The first ghetto is established in Piotrekow in Poland.
	December	All Jewish males in Poland between the age of 14 and 60 are conscripted for forced labour.
	1 December	All Jews in Czechoslovakia are forced to wear the Star of David.

1940

	Spring	Germany invades Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France.
	May	More than 160,000 Polish Jews are confined to the ghetto in Lodz.
	20 May	The concentration camp of Auschwitz is established in German-controlled Poland.
	2 October	The Warsaw ghetto is established.
	November	Approximately 500,000 Polish Jews are confined to the ghetto in Warsaw.

1941

	1 March	Heinrich Himmler orders a large-scale expansion of Auschwitz following a personal inspection tour.
	22 March	Germany sends troops to Northern Africa.
	6 April	Germany invades Greece and Yugoslavia.

The Holocaust: 1941-1945

1941

	22 June	Germany begins its war of extermination against the Soviet Union. Mass executions of Jews and communists. So-called Einsatzgruppen from the SS are responsible for most of the killings, together with local collaborators.
	31 July	Reinhard Heydrich receives authorisation to begin the implementation of the Endlösung – the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’.
	1 September	German Jews are forced to wear the Star of David.
	October	Deportations of German Jews to eastern Poland.
	8 October	The construction of Birkenau is begun at Auschwitz – a killing centre where Jews are to be gassed to death.
	7 December	Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, USA.
	8 December	Mass killings of Jews with the use of exhaust fumes are initiated in the extermination camp Chelmno.
	11 December	Nazi Germany declares war on the United States.

1942

	January	Jews from the ghetto in Lodz are sent to Chelmno and gassed to death.
	20 January	The Wannsee conference takes place, where the guidelines for the implementation of the Final Solution are established under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich.
	17 March	The killing of Jews in gas chambers is begun at the extermination camp Belzec.
	March-October	Hundreds of thousands of Jews are sent from ghettos in Poland and Czechoslovakia to the extermination camps at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, and gassed to death.
	1. juni	Jews in France and the Netherlands are forced to wear the Star of David.
	22 July	The Treblinka extermination camp is established.
	August	The Majdanek concentration camp begins to work as an extermination camp, as does Auschwitz. There are now six extermination camps running in Poland.

1943

	January	Germany is defeated at Stalingrad.
	March	German gypsies and gypsies from German-occupied countries are sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the so-called ‘gypsy camp’.
	June	All ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union are to be emptied out and destroyed.
	2 August	Desperate Jews revolt in Treblinka - most are subsequently executed. The gassings seize.
	October	Approximately 7,500 Danish Jews escape to Sweden, only a few are captured by the Nazis.
	14 October	The prisoners in Sobibor revolt. A few manage to escape. The camp is subsequently closed.

1944

	March	Germany invades its former ally, Hungary.
	May-	440,000 Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and gassed to death. A total of 550,000 Hungarian Jews perish.
	6 June	D-Day: Allied forces invade Normandy.
	24 July	Majdanek, a combined forced labour-, concentration- and extermination camp, is liberated by Soviet troops.
	1 August	The ‘gypsy camp’ in Auschwitz-Birkenau is liquidated. All 6,000 gypsies are gassed to death.
	September	The ghetto in Lodz is liquidated – almost 70,000 Jews are sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jews from Theresienstadt are also sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau – excluding Danish Jews.
	7 October	Prison revolt in Auschwitz. One of the crematoria is blown up.
	26 October	The Nazis order that all crematoria and gas chambers be blown up. All traces of their horrible crime are to disappear.

1945

	17 January	The Nazis evacuate Auschwitz and send the prisoners marching to Germany, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
	27 January	The Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
	April	The concentration camps at Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald are liberated by troops from the United States.
	5 May	The concentration camp Mauthausen is liberated by American troops.
	7 May	Germany surrenders.

Aftermath: 1945 -

1945

The legal process against Nazi war criminals is begun in Nuremberg. 22 top Nazis, military commanders and party functionaries are accused of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 1946 22 are convicted – 12 of them are sentenced to death.

1946

	11 March	The British arrest the former commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss. He is convicted at a tribunal in Warsaw and a year later hanged in Auschwitz.
	9 December	23 former SS-doctors and scientists are accused at the Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. 16 are found guilty – 7 of them are hanged.

1947

21 leading men from the Einsatzgruppen stand accused at the Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. 14 of them are sentenced to death, but only 4 are actually executed.

1960

Adolf Eichmann is captured in Argentina by the Israeli intelligence service.

1961

	11 April - 14 August	The Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem: Eichmann is accused of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and of war crimes. He is found guilty and sentenced to death. Eichmann is hanged 31 May 1962.
	1960's	Trials against the camp personnel from the extermination camps.

Links: Other timelines

> www.historyplace.com - external link

A very thorough and informative timeline. Frequent links to detailed sections on the various events.

> "ShoaNet - Holocaust Chronologie - (1933-1945)" - external link

Good German language timeline.

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