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*     Voices of the Holocaust
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Reference
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Chronology from Hitler's rise to power to the end of the Second World War
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Use the map to find the locations of places referred to in the chronology.

Year
Month
 Date
Action
1933
 January 30

Hitler becomes Chancellor (leader of the Government) of Germany.
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 February 27

Reichstag Fire: The German Parliament building is burnt down - the Nazis blame the communists, but it is believed that the Nazis carried it out.
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 March 24

Enabling Act: A law passed by Parliament that changed the Weimar Constitution and provided Hitler with the beginning of his dictatorial powers.
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 April

1

Boycott of Jewish businesses and professional offices.
    7

Professional Civil Service reform.

Jews excluded from Civil Service.

Jews excluded from teaching in schools and universities, Scientists and Civil Service.
    25 Quota established for 'non-Aryan' students at schools and universities.
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 May 10 Nazi burn thousands of books by Jewish and other banned authors.
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 July 14

Nazi party declared only legal party in Germany.

Cancellation of citizenship of any German naturalised after September 1918 - affecting 100,000 Eastern European Jews who had taken refuge in Germany post WW I.

Forced sterilisation of German citizens with congenital disabilities.
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 September 29 Only Aryans could inherit farms - obliged to prove they possessed no Jewish blood as far back as 1800s.
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1935
 May 31 'Non-Aryans' ineligible for military service.
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 September 15

The Nuremberg Laws (racial/citizenship laws).

Jews could no longer be citizens; marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Aryans were forbidden.
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1938
 March

13

Anchluss: The German army marches into Austria. German anti-Jewish decrees are applied to Jews in Austria.

    23 Recognition of Jewish organisations revoked.
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 July

6 - 15

 Evian Conference: 33 governments attended a conference at Evian to discuss the refugee situation. One country after another refused entry to Jewish refugees. Very few countries offered to help the Jews in any way whatsoever.
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   25 Jewish Doctors' licences cancelled.
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   27 Jewish Lawyers' licences cancelled.
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 August 1 Compulsory middle names for Jews.
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 October

5

 Passports of German Jews marked with a letter signifying the holder is Jewish.
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 28 Polish Jews living in Germany expelled.
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 November

9 - 10

 Kristallnacht: The night of broken glass. A night of appalling violence. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered and 20,000 German and Austrian Jews are sent to camps. Synagogues are burnt down and Jewish shop windows are broken. The Jews are fined for the damage.
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 15 Jewish children excluded from German schools.
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 December 2 The first of the Kindertransports arrive in Britain.
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1939
 January 30 Hitler's Reichstag speech which threatens European Jewry with annihilation.
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 September 1 German invasion of Poland.
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 3 Outbreak of WW II - Britain, France, India, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
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 27 German orders to set up ghettos in Poland. Jews are forced to live in overcrowded conditions in ghettos.
* October Beginning of the Euthanasia Programme in Germany which results in some 90,000 deaths of people with mental and physical disabilities by August 1941.
* November 23 Jews in Poland are forced to wear the Star of David armband or Yellow Stars for identification purposes.
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 December 2 Nazis initiate use of gas vans to eliminate mental patients.
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1940
 April 30 Lodz ghetto (160,000 Jews) sealed off.
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 November 15 Nearly 500,000 Jews sealed off in Warsaw ghetto.
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1941
 March 1 Auschwitz II concentration camp complex extended upon Himmler's orders. Construction of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
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 June 22

Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union - Operation Barbarossa.

Four Einzatzgruppen, special killing squads, begin mass slaughter of the Jews - approximately 2 million Jews in Eastern Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic States and the Western areas of the Soviet Union were killed.
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 July 31 Heydrich receives instructions from Goring based on Hitler's orders for "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question".
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 September 1 Nazi euthanasia programme officially ends.
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 December 8 Gas killings of Jews and Gypsies in mobile vans in Chelmno, the first death camp, near Lodz.
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1942
 January 20 Wannsee Conference in Berlin - co-ordination of plans for the Final Solution.
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 March 16 'Operation Reinhart' - Liquidation of Polish Jewry begins: first transports to Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek and Treblinka.
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 26 A deportation to Auschwitz of Slovakian Jewry begins. Followed by first deportations from France on 28 March.
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 July 22 Mass deportation of Warsaw Jews to Treblinka begins.
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 August 8 British and American governments receive information from World Jewish Congress about the Final Solution.
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 November 17 Allied declaration denounces murder of European Jewry and declares that those responsible will be brought to account.
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 December 17 Minute's silence in the House of Commons for the murdered Jews of Europe.
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1943
 January 18 Jewish armed resistance to deportations from Warsaw ghetto.
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 March 14 Cracow ghetto liquidated: pre-war Jewish population 60,000.
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 June 1 Lvov ghetto liquidated: pre-war Jewish population 150,000
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 28 Four crematoria constructed at Auschwitz- Birkenau.
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 August 16 Bialystok ghetto liquidated: pre-war Jewish population 50,000.
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 December 23 Vilna ghetto liquidated: pre-war Jewish population 80,000.
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1944
 May 15 Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begins.
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 August 6 Remaining Jews in Lodz ghetto, 70,000 deported to Auschwitz.
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 October 7 Revolt in Auschwitz.
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 November 28 Last gassings in Auschwitz. Gas chambers destroyed on Himmler's orders.
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1945
 January 17 Death March from Auschwitz begins.
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 27 Auschwitz-Birkenau liberated by the Soviets.
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 April 15 Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberated by the British army.
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 30 Hitler's suicide.
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 May 8 Nazi Germany surrenders. V-E Day.
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 October 18 Nuremberg Trials begin.

 

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