January 30, 1933
AdoIf Hitler is appointed
Chancellor
of Germany.
February 28, 1933
German government takes away
freedom
of speech, assembly, press, and freedom from invasion of privacy (mail,
telephone, telegraph) and from house search without warrant.
March 4, 1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt is
inaugurated
President of the United States.
March 20, 1933
First concentration camp opens at
Dachau, Germany, for political opponents of the regime.
April 1, 1933
Nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned
businesses in Germany is carried out under Nazi leadership.
April 7, 1933
Law excludes "non-Aryans" from
government
employment; Jewish civil servants, including university professors and
schoolteachers, are fired in Germany.
May 10, 1933
Books written by Jews, political
opponents of Nazis, and many others are burned during huge public
rallies
across Germany.
July 14, 1933
Law passed in Germany permitting
the forced sterilization of Gypsies, the mentally and physically
disabled,
African-Germans, and others considered "inferior" or "unfit."
October 1934
First major wave of arrests of
homosexuals
occurs throughout Germany, continuing into November.
April 1935
Jehovah's Witnesses are banned
from
all civil service jobs and are arrested throughout Germany.
September 15, 1935
Citizenship and racial laws are
announced at Nazi party rally in Nuremberg.
March 7, 1936
Hitler's army invades the
Rhineland.
July 12, 1936
First German Gypsies are arrested
and deported to Dachau concentration camp.
August 1-16, 1936
Olympic Games take place in
Berlin.
Anti-Jewish signs are removed until the Games are over.
March 13, 1938
Austria is annexed by Germany.
July 6-15, 1938
Representatives from thirty-two
countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee policies. Most of
the
countries refuse to let in more Jewish refugees.
November 9-10, 1938
Nazis burn synagogues and loot
Jewish
homes and businesses in nationwide pogroms called Kristallnacht ("Night
of Broken Glass"). Nearly 30,000 German and Austrian Jewish men are
deported
to concentration camps. Many Jewish women are jailed.
November 15, 1938
All Jewish children are expelled
from public schools. Segregated Jewish schools are created.
December 2-3, 1938
All Gypsies in the Reich are
required
to register with the police.
March 15, 1939
German troops invade
Czechoslovakia.
June 1939
Cuba and the United States refuse
to accept Jewish refugees aboard the ship St. Louis, which is
forced
to return to Europe.
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland; World War
II begins.
October 1939
Hitler extends power of doctors
to kill institutionalized mentally and physically disabled persons in
the
"euthanasia" program.
Spring 1940
Germany invades and defeats
Denmark,
Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France.
October 1940
Warsaw ghetto is established.
March 22, 1941
Gypsy and African-German children
are expelled from public schools in the Reich.
March 24, 1941
Germany invades North Africa.
April 6, 1941
Germany invades Yugoslavia and
Greece.
June 22, 1941
German army invades the Soviet
Union.
The Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads, begin mass murders
of
Jews, Gypsies, and Communist leaders.
September 23, 1941
Soviet prisoners of war and Polish
prisoners are killed in Nazi test of gas chambers at Auschwitz in
occupied
Poland.
September 28-29, 1941
Nearly 34,000 Jews are murdered
by mobile killing squads at Babi Yar, near Kiev (Ukraine).
October-November 1941
First group of German and Austrian
Jews are deported to ghettos in eastern Europe.
December 7, 1941
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
December 8, 1941
Gassing operations begin at
Chelmno
"extermination" camp in occupied Poland.
December 11, 1941
Germany declares war on the United
States.
January 20, 1942
Fifteen Nazi and government
leaders
meet at Wannsee, a section of Berlin, to discuss the "final solution to
the Jewish question."
1942
Nazi "extermination" camps located
in occupied Poland at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec,
and
Majdanek-Lublin begin mass murder of Jews in gas chambers.
June 1, 1942
Jews in France and the Netherlands
are required to wear identifying stars.
April 19-May 16, 1943
Jews in the Warsaw ghetto resist
with arms the Germans' attempt to deport them to the Nazi extermination
camps.
August 2, 1943
Inmates revolt at Treblinka.
Fall 1943
Danes use boats to smuggle most
of the nation's Jews to neutral Sweden.
October 14, 1943
Inmates at Sobibor begin armed
revolt.
January 1944
President Roosevelt sets up the
War Refugee Board at the urging of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau,
Jr.
March 19, 1944
Germany occupies Hungary.
May 15-July 9, 1944
Over 430,000 Hungarian Jews are
deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them are gassed.
June 6, 1944
Allied powers invade western
Europe
on D-Day.
July 20, 1944
German officers fail in an attempt
to assassinate Hitler.
July 23, 1944
Soviet troops arrive at Majdanek
concentration camp.
August 2, 1944
Nazis destroy the Gypsy camp at
Auschwitz-Birkenau; around 3,000 Gypsies are gassed.
October 7, 1944
Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau
revolt and blow up one crematorium.
January 17, 1945
Nazis evacuate Auschwitz;
prisoners
begin "death marches" toward Germany.
January 27, 1945
Soviet troops enter Auschwitz.
April 1945
U.S. troops liberate survivors at
Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide in his
bunker
in Berlin.
May 5, 1945
U.S. troops liberate Mauthausen
concentration camp.
May 7, 1945
Germany surrenders, and the war
ends in Europe.
November 1945-October 1946
War crimes trials held at
Nuremberg,
Germany
May 14, 1948
State of Israel is established.
From Tell Them We Remember by Susan Bachrach. Copyright © 1994 by Jeshajahu Weinberg. By permission of Little, Brown and Company.
Found at: http://www.ushmm.org/education/chrono.html