The Holocaust Timeline 1933-1946

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, was elected Chancellor of Germany.

The first concentration camp was opened at Dachau in Germany.

The Enabling Act was passed. The terms of this act allowed Hitler to become dictator of Germany.

German people were told not to buy from Jewish shops or businesses.

The Nazis announced that anyone who had non-Aryan parents or grandparents was also determined to be non-Aryan.

The Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, was created by Hermann Goring.

Books that did not support the Nazi ideals were publicly burnt.

A law was passed that imposed forced sterilisation on people with genetic defects.

The Nazi Party was declared the only legal party in Germany.

Jews were no longer allowed to own land.

Homeless, alcoholic and unemployed people were sent to concentration camps.

Heinrich Himmler was appointed assistant chief of the Gestapo.

An order was issued which prohibited Jewish people from having health insurance.

Night of the Long Knives
150 leaders of the SA (Stormtroopers) including Ernst Rohm were executed after it became clear that they wanted greater power.

Jews were prevented from gaining legal qualifications.

President Paul Hindenburg died. Hitler decided that the post of President and Chancellor should be combined and he gave himself the title Fuhrer.

The Nazi government banned the Jehovah’s Witness organisation.

Jews were banned from serving in the armed forces.

Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws were introduced. These laws were designed to take away Jewish rights of citizenship and included orders that:
Jews were no longer allowed to be German citizens
Jews were not allowed to marry non-Jews
Jews were forbidden from having sexual relations with non-Jews

Sachsenhausen concentration camp was opened.

A special section of the Nazi security services, known as the SS, was created to guard concentration camps.

Jews were banned from being teachers, accountants or dentists.

Buchenwald concentration camp was opened

The Nazi propaganda exhibition ‘The Eternal Jew’ opened in Munich. The exhibition showed images and text explaining typical features of Jews.

Anschluss with Austria
Germany and Austria were joined uniting the German speaking people.

After Anschluss, Jews in Austria were persecuted and victimised. The Mauthausen concentration camp was opened to deal with Austrian Jews.

Jews were told they had to register the property they owned and also how much money they had.

The Jewish synagogue in Munich was destroyed.

All Jews over the age of 15 years had to apply for an identity card.

Jewish doctors were no longer allowed to practice medicine.

The synagogue in Nuremberg was destroyed.

The Nazi government passed a law stating that all Jewish men were to use the middle name Israel and Jewish women the middle name Sara.

The passports of all Austrian and German Jews had to be stamped with a large red letter ‘J’.

The Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia was annexed by Nazi Germany in accordance with the terms of the Munich Agreement.

Polish Jews living in Germany were arrested and sent back to Poland. Poland refused them entry and they were stranded on the border.

Herschel Grynszpan, the son of one of the Polish Jews expelled from Germany, killed Ernst vom Rath, German Ambassador to France.

Kristallnacht
Prompted by the murder of Ernst Vom Rath, this was a night of extreme violence where approximately 100 Jews were murdered, 20,000 German and Austrian Jews arrested and sent to camps, hundreds of synagogues burned and the windows of Jewish shops all over Germany and Austria smashed.

Jews were made to pay one billion marks for the damage caused by Kristallnacht.

An order was issued that stated that Jewish children should not be allowed to attend non-Jewish German schools.

Hermann Goring ordered the leader of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich, to expel the Jews faster.

The Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads that rounded up and shot large numbers of Jewish people and others deemed undesirable in Nazi Germany, were created.

Jews were forced to hand all gold and silver items to the state.

Nazi troops invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in contravention to the Munich Agreement.

Ravensbruck concentration camp for women was opened.

German Jews were no longer allowed to hold government jobs.

A curfew was imposed for Jews in Germany – they were to be indoors by 8pm in the Summer and 9pm in the Winter.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland using Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics. Although the Poles fought back they were quickly defeated and Poland was occupied.

Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany marking the beginning of World War Two.

The SS Einsatzgruppen (killing squads) were instructed to move Jews in Poland to ghettos.

German Jews were no longer allowed to own wireless sets.

Jews living in Austria and Czechoslovakia were sent to Poland.

Polish Jews aged between 14 and 60 were to be put to forced labour.

Jews in Poland were forced to sew a yellow star onto their clothes so that they could be easily identified.

Jews in German occupied countries were persecuted by the Nazis and many were sent to concentration camps.

Work began on a new concentration camp at Auschwitz near Krakow in Poland.

Denmark and Norway were invaded and occupied by the Nazis.

The Lodz Ghetto in Poland was sealed with around 230,000 Jews inside.

Rudolf Höss was appointed Kommandant of the new camp at Auschwitz.

Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France were invaded and occupied by the Nazis.

Auschwitz concentration camp opened.

The Krakow Ghetto was sealed with around 70,000 Jews inside.

The Warsaw Ghetto was sealed off. There were around 400,000 Jewish people inside.

Around 2,000 Jews in Romania were killed.

Plans were made to expand Auschwitz by building a new compound at Birkenau, to enable it to hold 100,000 people at a time.

3,600 Jews were arrested in Paris.

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

The Einsatzgruppen (killing squads) began rounding up and murdering Jews in Russia. 33,000 Jews were murdered in two days at Babi Yar near Kiev.

Jewish ghettos were set up in Russian areas held by the Nazis.

Majdanek concentration was opened in Poland.

3,800 Jews were killed in Lithuania.

Final Solution
Reinhard Heydrich was chosen to implement a ‘Final Solution’ – a genocide against Jewish people.

German Jews were ordered to sew yellow stars onto their clothing.

Zyklon B gas was used at Auschwitz for the first time.

23,000 Jews were killed at Babi Yar in Ukraine.

Jews were forbidden to leave Germany.

Theresienstadt ghetto was established in Czechoslovakia.

The first ‘Death Camp’ was opened at Chelmno.

Mass-gassing of Jews began at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Wannsee Conference
Nazi delegates agreed to implement a ‘Final Solution’ which would see the eradication of Jews in Europe.

Polish Jews from Lublin were sent to Belzec extermination camp.

Slovak Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

French Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

German Jews were no longer allowed to use public transport.

Sobibor extermination camp opened in Poland.

Reinhard Heydrich was assasinated by the Czech resistance.

Jews in German occupied countries were told to wear yellow stars.

The Czech village of Lidice was razed to the ground and all men killed in retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich.

Berlin Jews were sent to Theresienstadt.

Dutch Jews from the Westerbork camp were sent to Auschwitz.

Belgian Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

A new extermination camp was opened at Treblinka in Poland. The Germans began deporting Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the camp.

An order was issued for all Jews in Germany to be sent to Auschwitz and Majdanek.

Norwegian Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

The camp at Belzec was destroyed.

An order was issued for gypsies to be sent to concentration camps.

Jews in Greece were put into ghettos.

The Greek Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

The Krakow ghetto was liquidated and inhabitants were sent to the Plaszow camp if they were fit to work or to Auschwitz.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
An order was issued to empty the Warsaw Ghetto and deport the inmates to Treblinka. Following the deportation of some Warsaw Jews, news leaked back to those remaining in the Ghetto of mass killings.
A group of about 750 mainly young people decided that they had nothing to lose by resisting deportation. Using weapons smuggled into the Ghetto they fired on German troops who tried to round up inmates for deportation.
They held out for nearly a month before they were taken by the Nazis and shot or sent to death camps.

Himmler ordered that all ghettos in Poland should be liquidated.

A fourth gas chamber was opened at Auschwitz.

With the Russians advancing from the East, the Germans were keen to destroy evidence of the death camps. Treblinka ceased operation.

Jews were sent from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.

A large number of Jews escaped from Sobibor camp. The Germans made the decision to close the camp and destroy evidence of its existence.

Two Jews, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, escaped from Auschwitz and reached Czechoslovakia where they reported what was happening at Auschwitz.

Jews from Athens were transported to Auschwitz.

440,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to Auschwitz.

Russian troops liberated Majdanek.

The Anne Frank and her family were discovered hiding in Amsterdam. They were sent to Auschwitz.

The Lodz ghetto in Poland was liquidated. Inhabitants were sent to Auschwitz.

The gas chambers at Auschwitz were used for the last time.

25,000 Hungarian Jews were force marched to Austria.

Oskar Schindler saved 1200 Jews from Plaszow labour camp in Poland.

66,000 Jews were taken from Auschwitz and force-marched to camps in central Germany.

Russian troops liberated Auschwitz.

Allied troops liberated Buchenwald.

British troops liberated Bergen Belsen.

US troops liberated Dachau.

Hitler committed suicide in Berlin.

Germany surrendered and the war in Europe was over.

Nuremberg War Trial
Surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial at Nuremberg.

Rudolph Hoss was hanged at Auschwitz.