The Timeline

• 1933
  • The Nazi party takes power in Germany. Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor, or prime minister, of Germany.
  • Nazis "temporarily" suspend civil liberities for all citizens. They are never restored.
  • The Nazia set up the first concentration camp at Dachau. The first inmates are 200 Communists.
  • Jews are prohibited from working as civil servants, doctors in the National Health Service, andteachers in public high schools. All but few Jewish students are banned from public high schools and the nation's universities.
  • Trade unions are closed.
  • Books with ideas considered dangerous to Nazi beliefs are burned in public.
• 1934
  • Hitler combines the positions of chancellor and president to become "Fuhrer" or leader of Germany.
  • I went to Hebrew School. We'd go to services [at the synagogue] because I would see my friends there. We would light candles at Hanukkah, but other than that we were very much assimilated. -Emilie Stern
• 1935
  • Jews are deprived of their citizenship and other basic rights.
  • The Nazis intensify the persecution of political dissidents and others considered "racially inferior" including "Gypsies," Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. Many are sent to concentration camps.
  • In 1933, Hitler came to power, and when I went to school, they put me in the last row of class because I was Jewish. After school, we could not play in the street because Jews were beaten up. -Sigi Hart
• 1936
  • Nazis boycott Jewich-owned businesses.
  • The Olympic Games are held in Germany; signs barring Jews are removed until the event is over.
• 1937
  • You went to school, came home, made homework. Had to practice the violin. We were lucky, you see. We had the seasons change. We have rain and snow. So what is the kid to do? You stayed home and what should you do? You read a book. And that was a blessing. -Fred Buch
• 1938
  • German troops annexed Austria.
  • On Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," Nazis terrorize Jews throughout Germany and Austria- 30,000 Jews are arrested, 91 are killed. Thousands of shops and businesses are looted and over 1000 synagogues are set on fire.
  • All Jewish children are expelled from public schools in Germany and Austria.
  • Nazis take control of Jewish-owned businesses.
• 1939
  • Germany takes over Czechosolvakia and invades Poland.
  • World War II begins as Britian and France declare war on Germany.
  • Hitler orders the systematic murder of the mentally and physically disabled in Germany and Austria.
  • Jews are required to wear armbands or yellow stars.
  • When Hitler began to persecute us and separate us and make us with arm bands and stars of David and when this happened, I felt a great deal of rejection. And I can remember thinking to myself, why was I born Jewish? -Henry Rosamarin
• 1940
  • Nazis begin deporting German Jews to Poland.
  • Jews are forced into ghettos.
  • Nazis begin the first mass murder of Jews in Poland.
  • Germany conquers one nation after another in Western Europe including Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
• 1941
  • Germany attacks the Soviet Union.
  • Jews throughout Eastern Europe are forced into ghettos.
  • In two days, mobile killing units shoot 33,771 Ukrainian Jews at BabiYar- the largest single massacre of the Holocaust. Mobile killing units begin the systematic slaughter of Jews.
  • The death camp at Chelmno in Poland begins murdering Jews.
  • Germany, as an ally of Japan, declares war on the United States, immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
• 1942
  • At the Wannsee Conference, Nazi officials turn over the "Final Soulution"- their plan to kill all European Jews- to the government officials.
  • Five death camps begin operation in Poland: Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
  • March: About 20 to 25 percent of the Jews who would die in the Holocaust have already been murdered.
  • Ghettos of Eastern Europe are being emptied as thousands of Jews are shipped to death camps.
  • The United States, Britian, and the Soviet Union acknowledge that Germans are exterminating the Jews of Europe.
• 1943
  • February: About 80 to 85 percent of the Jews who would die in the Holocaust have already been murdered.
  • Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto resist as the Nazis begin new rounds of deportations. These Jews hold out for nearly a month before the Nazis put down the uprising.
  • Thousands of people were pouring out of this train. The train had no end. I couldn't see the end of it. And there was tremendous chaos; children looking for parents and mothers calling their children's names. It was impossible to find anybody. -Renee Firestone
• 1944
  • Hitler takes over Hungary and begins deporting 12,000 Hungarian Jews each day to Auschwitz where they are murdered.
  • I looked up to the sky, I say the stars, and I counted each star one of my family. -Hellmuth Szpycer
• 1945
  • Hitler is defeated and World War II ends in Europe.
  • The Holocaust is over and the death camps are emptied.
  • Many survivors are placed in displaced persons camps until they find a country willing to accept them.
  • Since I was the youngest, I got out first, and it was a beautiful day. Birds were chirping and the flowers were out. And to walk alone and not to have to walk in line with guards around us, it was some glorious feeling. -Erika Jacoby
• 1946
  • An International Military Tribunal is created by Britian, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. At Nuremberg, Nazi leaders are tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• 1947
  • The United Nations establishes a Jewish homeland in British- controlled Palestine, which becomes the State of Israel in 1948.
  • The pain is real. The pain is not a fiction. I wish it were a fiction. I wish somebody would come back and give me back my family and say, 'Hey, it never happened. Here they are.' But they aren't here.
    -Solomom Wieder