-
March 21, 1933, Dachau, the first concentration camp is established.
-
April 7, 1933, Jewish government workers, civil servants, and teachers loose their jobs.
-
April 26, The Gestapo is formed.
-
May 2, 1933, Trade unions are banned in Germany.
-
May 10, 1933, The first major book burning of what the Reich considers "degenerate" books.
-
July 14, 1933, All political parties other than the Nazi party are banned in Germany.
-
April 20, 1934, Himmler is placed in charge of the Gestapo.
-
August 2, 1934, Hitler makes himself Fuhrer.
-
September 15, 1935, The Nuremberg Laws are passed against the Jews.
-
August 1936, The Olympics are held in Berlin.
-
1937, Jewish businesses are "Aryanized".
-
July 16, 1937, Buchenwald concentration camp is established.
-
March 13, 1938, Germany takes over Austria.The Austrian people vote to join Germany.
-
August 8, 1938, Mauthausen concentration camp is established.
-
October 28, 1938, The first Jews are deported from Poland by the Polish government.
-
November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass" Nazi organized pogrom destroying and looting Jewish business, more than 260 Synagogues were destroyed. The Gestapo arrests more than 20,000 Jews and taken to concentration camps.
-
August 1939, Rationing is introduced, almost all food items and clothes are rationed.
-
September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland, Nazi's begin to pass laws against Polish Jews.
-
September 3, 1939, Britain and France declare war on Germany.
-
September 17, 1939, The Soviet Union invades Poland from the East.
-
September 28, 1938, Germany and the Soviet Union split Poland up between them.
-
1939 The British government agrees to take about 10,000 refugee Jewish children ages 3 months to 17 years. These children stayed in homes with families or in hotels set up by charity organizations.
-
May 13, 1939, 930 Jewish refugees sailed on the St.Louis from Hamburg, Germany toward Cuba. Upon arrival, Cuba refused to let them enter, and close to Miami they appealed to President and Mrs. Roosevelt for asylum but were turned away. The ship returned to Europe, Britain took 287, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands took the remaining 619.Most were killed in the Holocaust.
-
February 12, 1940, The first group of Jews are deported from Germany to ghettos in Poland.
-
April 9, 1940, Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
-
May 10, 1940, Germany invades Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
-
November 15, 1940, the Warsaw ghetto is established.
-
April 6, 1941, Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
-
June 22, 1941, Germany invades the Soviet Union: mass executions of Soviet Jews follow.
-
September 1, 1941, All German Jews over the age of six have to wear the Star of David.
-
September 1941, The Nazis set up many concentration camps, ghettos, and death camps in Poland. Auschwitz -Birkenau begins mass gassings on Soviet prisoners of war, their focus on the Jewish population will soon begin.
-
October 10, 1941, The Terezin ghetto is set up, German and Czech Jews are sent there.
-
October 16, 1941, Mass deportation of German Jews to Poland begins.
-
October 28, 1941, 10,000 Jews are selected and killed at the Kovno ghetto, in Poland.
-
December 7, 1941, Japan bombs the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the war.
-
December 8, 1941, The first gassings of Jews take place at Chelmno.
-
December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States
-
January 20, 1042, Wannsee Conference outlines the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem.".
-
March 26, 1942, The first major British bombing raid on German cities takes place.
-
May 30-31, 1941 Cologne is bombed.
-
March 17, 1943, Bulgaria and Hungary, allies of Germany refuse to deport Jews.
-
April 19, 1943, The Warsaw ghetto revolt begins.
-
June 11, 1943, Himmler orders all remaining ghettos to be emptied and their inhabitants killed.
-
March 23, 1944, Deportation of Jews from Greece, occupied by the Germans, begins.
-
April 9, 1944, Two Jews escape from Auschwitz and send news of the camp to the Allies.
-
May 15, 1944, Mass deportation and gassing of Hungarian Jews begins.
-
June 6, 1944, Allied troops land in Normandy.
-
June 1944, The death marches from the camps from the East begin. prisioners are marched westward away from the camps in the east, in front of advancing Soviet troops. ​
Since the end of World War I, in 1945, the Holocaust refers to the deliberate attempt by the Nazi government, in Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, to destroy all the Jewish people who were
in the Nazi-controlled territories.
Fueled by historical anti-Semitism, Austrian-born, Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, first as a
chancellor, and then elevated himself as the "supreme commander," Fuhrer.
Hitler capitalized on the plight of "the working class" who were suffering economically from
out of control inflation following World War I, and double-digit unemployment.
Hitler like many in the National Socialist German Workers Party opposed the harsh treatment of Germany after World War I, especially the Treaty of Versailles which took away
the land acquired during the war ordered Germany to pay reparation for countries damaged by the war, forced the German army to reduce its size, and insisted Germany assume "full blame" for World War I, this had never been included in a peace treaty before.
Hitler and the Nazi Party drew up twenty-five points that would outline the primary goals of the party. Key concerns focused on the average German worker being "exploited" and the
Nazi party promised work and food for the German people and restoration of their national
pride.
Hitler and the Nazi party argued the German people's greatest oppressors and threat were Marxism, Communism, the very wealthy, "intellectuals" and the Jews, who most often fell
into one or all of the categories!
Hitler's Third Reich would rule for a thousand years. In his book, Mein Kampf, (My Struggle), Germany would need more Lebensraum, "living space" for the
expansion of the Aryan race, white, Nordic "type" Europeans who are superior to the remainder of the population of Europe. The focus on "pure blood Germans" was central to the party's goals. The "pure" German people would ignore the criteria signed by the Treaty of Versailles since it seriously infringed on the objectives of the "superior race." Hitler established his private army, the "SA" or "Stormtroopers" who Hitler would utilize to gain full control of Germany and anything else he felt was theirs for the taking.
The Holocaust
