The Timeline

o 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.

o 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

o 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

o 1936

+ Nazis boycott Jewich-owned businesses.

+ The Olympic Games are held in Germany; signs barring Jews are

removed until the event is over.

o 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

o 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.

o 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

o 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.

o 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.

o 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.

o 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

o 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

o 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

o 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.

o 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

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