U.S. Jew produces $100,000 YouTube clip on the HolocaustVIDEO / The five-minute clip, ‘Rainbow in the Night’, aims to combat Holocaust denial and increase awareness of the atrocity among American teenagers

Rainbow in the Night, a short YouTube clip, is a brief but exceptionally powerful video created specifically for today's fast paced generation. Using stunning cinematography, a haunting score, hard hitting lyrics and vocals that will touch the deepest recesses of the soul, this historical work offers a glimpse into World War II Krakow as seen through the eyes of a survivor. Beginning with footage of a 1939 original oil painting of a synagogue being ravaged by the Nazis, shown at a private event in the survivor's home, Rainbow in the Night is an exquisitely emotional journey, as the survivor recalls first the warmth of his childhood home, then the shock and disbelief as people are forced to leave their homes for the Krakow ghetto, taken to an extermination camp and after enduring unspeakable cruelty, finally liberated. Set against a backdrop of utter despair and hopelessness, the survivor relives the inexplicable power that enabled him to persevere, the rainbow in the figurative night that promised better days to come. Culminating triumphantly with our hope for the future, the faces of hundreds of modern day Jewish children, Rainbow in the Night is both a euphoric tribute to the indomitable human spirit that enabled the Jewish people to survive against all odds and also a call to arms, to rekindle the spark of Jewish pride and unity among Jews worldwide, as we continue to rebuild the generations that were destroyed by the
Nazis.

To download the song, please visit:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rainbow-in-night-feat.-yanky/id498260454
http://www.mostlymusic.com/rainbow-in-the-night.html

850,000 mass Jewish grave discovered at Treblinca death camp.

A British forensic archaeologist has unearthed fresh evidence to prove the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka - scuppering the claims of Holocaust deniers who say it was merely a transit camp.

Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the site, in north east Poland, during the Second World War but a lack of physical evidence in the area has been exploited by Holocaust deniers.
Forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls has now undertaken the first co-ordinated scientific attempt to locate the graves.

As Jewish religious law forbids disturbing burial sites, she and her team from the University of Birmingham have used 'ground-penetrating radar'.

Her work at the site, where the Nazis tried to destroy all traces of industrial-scale killing, is being followed in forthcoming Radio 4 documentary The Hidden Graves Of The Holocaust.

Sturdy Colls said: 'All the history books state that Treblinka was destroyed by the Nazis but the survey has demonstrated that simply isn’t the case. 'I’ve identified a number of buried pits using geophysical techniques. These are considerable in size, and very deep, one in particular is 26 by 17 metres.'

The programme’s presenter says that the pits contain the burnt remains of thousands of bodies.

The forensic archaeologist, who has now presented her findings to the authorities responsible for the memorial at Treblinka, added: 'I really hope this is the first stage in a long-term programme to seek out those hidden graves of the Holocaust.'

Survivor Kalman Taigman remembers his arrival at the camp’s railway station, packed into a cattle wagon. 'I was with my mother. We were about 100 people in a wagon. They opened the doors, firing guns and hitting us, and sent us into a yard. I ran with my mother and tried to calm her. 'They told me to leave my mother but I didn’t do it quickly and I was hit on the head. When I got up, she was gone. She went with all the rest of the women to the gas chamber.'

850,000 mass Jewish grave discovered at Treblinca death camp http://ow.ly/8AvPO

The Sketchbook from Auschwitz.

A unique work preserved in the collections of the Auschwitz Memorial has been published by the Museum in its entirety for the first time. It is the only set of drawings made in the camp depicting the extermination of Jews deported by German Nazis to Auschwitz. The unknown author documented in his drawings also murdering of prisoners who were sick or had been worked to exhaustion.

The 22 pages were stuffed inside a bottle concealed in the foundations of one of the barracks of the Birkenau camp, not far from the place where gas chambers and crematoria IV and V were located. A former prisoner Józef Odi, who was then acting as a watchman on the grounds of the Memorial, found it at the site in 1947.

The drawings which depict the extermination are mixed with different drawings presenting Auschwitz as a concentration camp. The two functions, the extermination center and the concentration camp, appear in the Sketchbook simultaneously, as it happened in the reality. Yet, the topic of extermination was singled out by the author himself. This shows that he was aware of the unprecedented nature of the events he witnessed.

The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. German Nazis performing the selection among the deported Jews"You can clearly see that the author was determined in presenting the largest number of details. Badges of functionary prisoners, number plates of the trucks, train cars on the ramp as well as block numbers are carefully depicted. The author of the Sketchbook hoped that someone would find his work so that it would became a witness of extermination", says Agnieszka Sieradzka, art historian from the Museum's Collections Department and the author of the study.

The Polish-English publication was provided with an introduction explaining the circumstances of creation of the Sketchbook. Each of the drawings is accompanied by a historical explanation and survivors' accounts.

The book is available at the on-line bookstore of the Auschwitz Memorial. Auschwitz-Birkenau - The Sketchbook from Auschwitz http://ow.ly/8AuZd

HOW THESE FUNDS WILL BE USED TO HELP HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

There are over 5,000 frail and lonely Holocaust survivors living throughout New York City.

iVolunteer is a dynamic visitation program that sends volunteers to the homes of Holocaust survivors, providing them with companionship and much-needed assistance. Our volunteers are carefully matched with survivors who live nearby and share common interests.

Through weekly visits, our volunteers build rewarding and enduring friendships with survivors. They are given the privilege of hearing extraordinary stories, and the intergenerational bonds that inevitably form ensure the experience of the Holocaust will not be forgotten Teen iVolunteer is a new program started by iVolunteer which will match teens with Holocaust survivors, for weekly visits for eight consecutive weeks. Each week the volunteer will have a specific project to complete, based in what he/she learned during that week’s visit. Every year all the projects will be displayed publicly, with all the teens and survivors present. iVolunteer’s new and exciting initiative is an experience of learning and through innovative ways, to awaken in youth a love and passion for giving back to the community.

iVolunteer helps survivors living in NYC Please help us help them. In New York City, as many 5,000 are alone and look forward to visits from young people who help them schlep groceries, read them iVolunteer with Holocaust survivorstories, and make them feel loved and remembered. When they find emergencies, volunteers are trained to let the right people know, so that the affected survivor can get the professional help they need from mainstream agencies.

Our Holocaust survivors are our last witness to a history that is a warning about how people can treat each other. In their lifetimes they have suffered. Our goal at iVolunteer is to treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve in their waning days. Today, the survivors are facing their own challenges--aging, poverty and disease. Many are disconnected from their families because of distance and the inability to use today's technologies. This is why they are so in need of a visitor now.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THIS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR ORGANIZATION -

VIP PERKS
$10 or more = Card with iVolunteer Pen
You'll get a thank you letter from a volunteer that visits a Holocaust survivor weekly.

$100 or more = Autographed Book
A book written by one of our dear survivors describing their miraculous survival, autographed by them with an iVolunteer pen.

$500 or more = Tour of Museum of Heritage
Enjoy a tour of the Museum of Heritage in NY and lunch in Battery Park following the tour.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [?a?f?ns?b??k]) was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

When a new prisoner arrived at Ravensbrück they were required to wear a color-coded triangle (a Winkel) that identified them by category, with a letter sewn within the triangle indicating the prisoner's nationality. Polish women wore a red triangle, red denoting a political prisoner, with a letter "P". By 1942, Polish women became the largest national component at the camp. Jewish women wore yellow triangles, but sometimes, unlike the other prisoners, they wore a second triangle for the other categories or for "race defilement". Some transports had their hair shaved, such as from Czechoslovakia and Poland, but "Aryan" transports did not. For instance, in 1943 a group of Norwegian women came to the camp. (Norwegians/Scandinavians were ranked by the Nazis as the purest of all Aryans.) None had their hair shaved. Between 1942 and 1943 almost all Jewish women from the Ravensbrück camp were sent to Auschwitz in several transports following Nazi policy to make Germany "Judenrein" (cleansed of Jews). Common criminals wore green triangles, Soviet  prisoners of war, German and Austrian Communists had red triangles and members of the Jehovah's Witnesses were labeled with lavender triangles. Classified separately with black triangles were prostitutes, Gypsies, lesbians, or women who refused to marry.

Based on the Nazis incomplete transport list "Zugangsliste" consisting 25,028 names of women sent by Nazis to the camp, it is estimated that inmates of Ravensbrück ethnic structure was the following: Poles 24.9%, Germans 19.9%, Jews 15.1%, Russians 15.0%, French 7.3%, Gypsies 5.4%, other 12.4%. Gestapo categorized the inmates as follows: political 83.54%, anti-social 12.35%, criminal 2.02%, Jehovah Witnesses 1.11%, racial defilement 0.78%, other 0.20%. The list is one of the most important documents, preserved in the last moments of the camp operation by courageous members of the Polish underground girl guides unit "Mury" (The Walls). The rest of the camp documents were burned by escaping SS overseers in pits or in the crematorium.

One of the forms of the resistance were underground education programs organized by prisoners for their fellow inmates. All national groups had some sort of program. The most extensive were among Polish women where various high school level classes were taught by experienced teachers.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to "selections" in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, "selected" prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to "euthanasia" killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, W?adys?awa Karolewska and Maria Ku?mierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors' Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp's liberation in April 1945.

With the Soviet Army's rapid approach in the Spring of 1945, the SS decided to exterminate as many prisoners as they could in order to avoid leaving anyone to testify as to what had happened in the camp. With the Russians only hours away, at the end of March, the SS ordered the women still physically well enough to walk to leave the camp, forcing over 20,000 prisoners on a death march toward northern Mecklenburg. Shortly before the evacuation, the Germans had handed over 7000 female prisoners, mostly French, to officials of the Swedish and Danish Red Cross. Fewer than 3,500 malnourished and sickly women and 300 men remained in the camp when it was liberated by the Red Army  on April 30, 1945. The survivors of the Death March were liberated in the following hours by a Russian scout unit.

By the time liberation came, tens of thousands (estimates are about 30,000 to 40,000) of women and children had perished there.

More then 3 million women and children were killed in concentration camps. This film depicts some of the atrocities performed om women before murdered by the nazi's

Jewish women, gypsy women, and other women including political dissidents in Germany and in Nazi-occupied countries were sent to concentration camps, forced to work, subjected to medical experiments, and executed, as men were. One Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbrück, was created especially for women and children; of 132,000 from more than 20 countries incarcerated there, about 92,000 died of starvation, illness, or were executed.

A woman's gender in the camps could subject her to special victimization including rape and sexual slavery, and a few women used their sexuality to survive. In a world in which women are often valued for their beauty and their child-bearing potential, the shearing of women's hair and the effect of a starvation diet on their menstrual cycles added to the humiliation of the concentration camp experience. Just as a father's expected protective role over wife and children was mocked when he was powerless to protect his family, so it added to a mother's humiliation to be powerless to protect and nurture her children.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [?a?f?ns?b??k]) was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to "selections" in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, "selected" prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to "euthanasia" killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, W?adys?awa Karolewska and Maria Ku?mierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors' Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp's liberation in April 1945.

Nazi Germany built a facility in 1942 known as A Death Factory for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish race.

Around 300 barracks were built on a 170-hectare site.

At its peak, 90,000 people were detained here at any one time to be killed.

Once people passed through this gate, the chimneys were their only way out.

The railway passing through Death Gate into the concentration camp brought Jews from all over Europe.

This Polish man was also placed here for his anti-Nazi activities. (Interview with a Polish survivor in Polish, subtitles) I remember seeing a Jewish mother and her child arriving from Slovakia. They were carrying heavy luggage and looked exhausted. The mother was leading her child by the hand. Some people were instructed to go to a building and the others were sent to the gas chamber. That was the first time I witnessed the genocide.

Jews were told that they were going to take a shower, they were stripped naked and led to a room.

What came out from the holes in the ceiling was not hot water but a gas containing a deadly pesticide.

Nearly 400 Jewish people were killed at a time. The victims suffered for up to 20 minutes before suffocating to death.

Their bodies were cremated in the incinerators in the adjoining room.

Sometimes the number of the bodies exceeded the maximum capacity and they had to be burnt in the fields.

A pile of hair from Jewish women sent to the Gas Chamber was placed in a storage room.

The Nazis sent the hair back to Germany to use as fabric. Children were separated from their parents and also sent to the Gas Chamber.

The number of people killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp was said to be over 1.4 million.

Those who managed to survive bore huge emotional scars from the horrifying experience.

(Polish former prisoner recalls his memory in German, subtitles)

.I can still hear the voice shouting,  Left! Left! Hats off!.....Heads right!

The photos were taken at the end of May or beginning of June 1944, either by Ernst Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS men whose task was to take ID photos and fingerprints of the inmates (not of the Jews who were sent directly to the gas chambers). The photos show the arrival of Hungarian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia. Many of them came from the Berehov Ghetto, which itself was a collecting point for Jews from several other small towns.

For more info visit
http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions...

Auschwitz Concentration Camp Timeline 1940-1945

AUSCHWITZ CAMP OPENS
May 20, 1940
The Auschwitz I concentration camp opens with the arrival of 30 German prisoners. They are the first prisoners to receive serial numbers in the camp. German authorities will begin the deportation of Polish prisoners to Auschwitz in June 1940. Auschwitz I, the first camp opened in the Auschwitz complex, is located near the Polish town of Oswiecim. Construction began in early May using the existing Polish military barracks in the Oswiecim suburb of Zasole. The camp is about 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Eastern Upper Silesia, an area annexed to Germany in August 1939. Auschwitz I, primarily a concentration camp, functions as a detention facility for prisoners. The Auschwitz complex will expand over the next few years with the establishment of forced-labor camps throughout the region and an extermination camp near Birkenau (Brzezinka).

HIMMLER INSPECTS AUSCHWITZ
March 1, 1941
Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS and chief of German police, inspects Auschwitz. Because nearby factories use prisoners for forced labor, Himmler is concerned about the prisoner capacity of the camp. On this visit, he orders both the expansion of Auschwitz I camp facilities to hold 30,000 prisoners and the building of a camp near Birkenau for an expected influx of 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Himmler also orders that the camp supply 10,000 prisoners for forced labor to construct an I.G. Farben factory complex at Dwory, about a mile away. Himmler will make additional visits to Auschwitz in 1942, when he will witness the killing of prisoners in the gas chambers.

SS TESTS GASSING FACILITIES
September 3, 1941
The first gassings of prisoners occur in Auschwitz I. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other ill or weak prisoners. Testing takes place in a makeshift gas chamber in Auschwitz I. Zyklon B was the commercial name for crystalline hydrogen cyanide gas, manufactured by I.G. Farben and normally used as an insecticide. The "success" of these experiments will lead to the adoption of Zyklon B as the killing agent for the yet-to-be-constructed Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Mass killings will begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau in the spring of 1942.

CONSTRUCTION OF AUSCHWITZ II
October 8, 1941
Construction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp begins. Of the three camps established in the Auschwitz complex, Birkenau will have the largest prisoner population. The camp will include sections for women, men, Roma (Gypsies), and families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau will play a central role in the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe. At the height of killing operations, deportation transports will arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau daily from across Europe--including western and southern Europe.

GASSING OPERATIONS BEGIN
March 20, 1942
The SS puts the new gas chambers at Auschwitz into operation. The gas chambers are located in specially renovated farmhouses near the Birkenau section of the camp. The SS forces an entire transport of Polish Jews directly to the gas chambers without a selection (the separation of prisoners chosen for forced labor from those to be killed).

DEPORTATIONS FROM FRANCE
March 30, 1942
The first mass transport of Jews from France arrives at Auschwitz. There are about 1,000 people in this transport. Almost all the Jews in this transport are processed into the camp upon arrival. Transports from France will continue to arrive on a regular basis until August 1944. The majority of the 75,000 Jews deported from France will be killed in the gas chambers in Birkenau.

FORCED-LABOR CAMP OPENS
May 31, 1942
German authorities open the I.G. Farben labor camp at Monowitz (Auschwitz III). This camp is to provide forced laborers for the Buna synthetic rubber works (part of the German conglomerate I.G. Farben). I.G. Farben chose to establish installations at Auschwitz because of its available pool of forced laborers and also for its access to gravel pits and other resources located in the region. Prisoners selected for forced labor are registered in Auschwitz I before they are assigned to labor projects in Auschwitz III or any of the other forced-labor subcamps in the Auschwitz camp system. Over the next three years, an estimated 25,000 prisoners will die in the Monowitz labor camp.

TYPHUS EPIDEMIC
July 3, 1942
A typhus epidemic breaks out in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 184 male prisoners and an unknown number of female prisoners die in this epidemic.

DEPORTATIONS FROM THE NETHERLANDS
July 17, 1942
The first transports of Jews from the Netherlands arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Out of two transports carrying close to 2,000 people, nearly 500 people are gassed or shot immediately. SS doctors select the remaining group, mostly men, for forced-labor projects in Auschwitz. Between July 1943 and September 1944, over 60,000 Jews will be deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz. The majority will be gassed upon arrival in the camp.

DEPORTATIONS FROM BELGIUM
August 5, 1942
The first transport of close to 1,000 Jews from Belgium arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau. After a selection, nearly 750 people are registered in the camp. The others are gassed or shot. Close to 25,000 Jews will be deported from Belgium, the majority to Auschwitz, by June 1944.
DEPORTATION OF ROMA (GYPSIES)

February 26, 1943
The first transport of Roma (Gypsies) from Germany and Austria arrives in Auschwitz. The SS places the arrivals in a section of Birkenau that becomes the Gypsy family camp. More Roma will arrive in transports throughout the spring of 1943 and will be sent to the same family camp. Approximately 23,000 Roma will be interned at Auschwitz during the camp's existence. Throughout 1944, thousands of Roma will be transported to other concentration camps, used for forced-labor projects, or killed in the gas chambers. Between 6,500 and 16,000 Roma will be killed at Auschwitz.

DEPORTATIONS FROM SALONIKA
March 20, 1943
The first transport of Jews from the ghetto in Salonika, Greece, arrives in Auschwitz. Of 2,800 deportees, the SS registers about 600 men and women in the camp to work as forced laborers. The remaining men, women, and children are killed in the gas chambers. By June 1943 the Germans will have deported 46,000 Jews from Salonika--and another 7,000 from other Greek areas--to Auschwitz.

NEW GASSING FACILITIES CONSTRUCTED
March 22, 1943
The first of four new gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau is ready for use. The other three will be completed by June 1943. The new facilities each have three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. Each chamber has the capacity to gas about 2,000 people daily.

DEPORTATIONS FROM THERESIENSTADT
September 9, 1943
Over 5,000 Jewish prisoners from the Theresienstadt ghetto in the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia arrive in Auschwitz-Birkenau. A special family camp is set up for the Jews deported from Theresienstadt. The SS has maintained the Theresienstadt ghetto, since 1941, as a "model ghetto." Propaganda primarily for public consumption in the Reich sought to use Theresienstadt to dispel reports of deplorable conditions in ghettos and deportations to extermination camps. The propaganda ploy continues when deportations of Jews from Theresienstadt arrive in Auschwitz. The SS allows new arrivals from Theresienstadt to remain together in families. They are permitted to keep their civilian clothes and are not forced to have their hair shorn. Living conditions, however, are not better than those elsewhere in Birkenau. More than 1,000 of this first group will die within six months. More deportations, with another 5,000 Jews from Theresienstadt, will arrive in December 1943.
DEPORTATIONS FROM ITALY

October 23, 1943
The first train carrying Jews from Italy arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau, with over 1,000 people. Only about 200 men and women are admitted to the camp. The rest are killed in the gas chambers or shot. Some 8,300 Jews will be deported from Italy to Auschwitz over the next year.

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF AUSCHWITZ
April 4, 1944
An Allied aerial reconnaissance plane takes photographs of the I.G. Farben complex at Auschwitz. This is the first of many aerial reconnaissance missions resulting in photographs that show Auschwitz barracks and crematoria. Allied bombings of the I.G. Farben factory works and of some of the satellite camps will occur during the summer and fall of 1944, but there are no direct bombings of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau, or the gas chambers and crematoria.

WETZLER AND VRBA ESCAPE
April 7, 1944
Two Slovak Jews, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, escape from Auschwitz and flee to Slovakia. They make contact with representatives of the Jewish council in Zilina, Slovakia, and present a detailed report of their experiences in Auschwitz. Their report is sent to Allied governments, the Vatican, and the Polish and Slovak governments-in-exile. Although much is already known about the German killing of Europe's Jews, this report presents detailed information about how it is possible for the Germans to kill millions of people.

DEPORTATIONS FROM HUNGARY
May 16, 1944
Following the German occupation of Hungary, the first transports of Hungarian Jews begin arriving in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nearly 440,000 Hungarian Jews will be deported from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz, by July 1944. The majority of deportees will be taken directly to the gas chambers or shot. The transports of Hungarian Jews are the last of the large transports to Auschwitz.

PRISONER UPRISING
October 7, 1944
Members of the Jewish prisoner detachment (the Sonderkommando) that was forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers and operate the crematoria stage an uprising. They successfully blow up Crematorium IV and kill several guards. Women prisoners had smuggled gunpowder out of nearby factories to members of the Sonderkommando. The SS quickly suppresses the revolt and kills all the Sonderkommando members. On January 6, 1945, just weeks before Soviet forces liberate the camp, the SS will also hang four women who smuggled gunpowder into the camp.

GASSING OPERATIONS END
November 25, 1944
As Soviet and Allied forces continue to move into German-occupied territory, Heinrich Himmler orders the destruction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria. During this SS attempt to destroy the evidence of mass killings, prisoners will be forced to dismantle and dynamite the structures.

SS EVACUATES AUSCHWITZ
January 18, 1945
As Soviet forces approach from the east, the SS begins evacuating (to the west) the prisoners of the Auschwitz camp complex. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. During the march, SS guards shoot anyone who cannot continue. In Wodzislaw, the prisoners will be put on unheated freight trains and deported to concentration camps in Germany, particularly to Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Dachau, and to Mauthausen in Austria. In all, nearly 60,000 prisoners are forced on death marches from the Auschwitz camp system. More than 15,000 die during the death marches. Thousands more were killed in the days before the evacuation.

SOVIET FORCES LIBERATE AUSCHWITZ
January 27, 1945
The Soviet army enters Auschwitz and liberates the few thousand prisoners remaining in the camp. At least 1.1 million Jews from across Europe were killed in Auschwitz during the camp's existence. Other victims included between 70,000 and 75,000 Poles, between 6,500 and 16,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

LIST OF TRANSPORTS FROM BERLIN TO THE EAST

No. Date Destination Number of Deportees
18 October 1941 Lodz 1,013,
2. 24 October 1941 Lodz 1,024,
3. 27 October 1941 Lodz 1,009,
4. 1 November 1941 Lodz 1,033,
5. 14 November 1941 Minsk,
6. 17 November 1941 Kovno 3,715,
7. 27 November 1941 Riga,
8. 13 January 1942 Riga 907,
9. 19 January 1942 Riga 579,
10. 25 January 1942 Riga 905,
11. 28 March 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 972,
12. 2 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 728,
13. 2 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 642,
14. 14 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 72,
15. 13 June 1942 East 748,
16. 26 June 1942 East 201,
17. 11 July 1942 Auschwitz 210,
18.15 August 1942 Riga 1,004,
19. 5 September 1942 Unknown 790,
20. 3 October 1942 Unknown 816,
21. 19 October 1942 Unknown 944,
22. 26 October 1942 Unknown 800,
23. 29 November 1942 Auschwitz 980,
24. 9 December 1942 Auschwitz 1,000,
25. 14 December 1942 Auschwitz 811,
26. 12 January 1943 Auschwitz 1,190,
27. 29 January 1943 Auschwitz 1,000,
28. 3 February 1943 Auschwitz 952,
29. 19 February 1943 Auschwitz 1,000,
30. 26 February 1943 Auschwitz 913,
31. 1 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,682,
32. 2 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,592,
33. 3 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,732,
34. 4 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,143,
35. 6 March 1943 Auschwitz 657,
36. 12 March 1943 Auschwitz 946,
37. 19 April 1943 Auschwitz 338,
38. 17 May 1943 Auschwitz 395,
39. 28 May 1943 Auschwitz 319,
40. 4 August 1943 Auschwitz 99,
41. 24 August 1943 Auschwitz 50,
42. 10 September 1943 Auschwitz 53,
43. 28 September 1943 Auschwitz 74,
44. 14 October 1943 Auschwitz 74,
45. 29 October 1943 Auschwitz 49,
46. 8 November 1943 Auschwitz 50,
47. 7 December 1943 Auschwitz 55,
48. 20 January 1944 Auschwitz 48,
49. 22 February 1944 Auschwitz 32,
50. 9 March 1944 Auschwitz 32,
51. 18 April 1944 Auschwitz 30,
52. 3 May 1944 Auschwitz 27,
53. 19 May 1944 Auschwitz 24,
54. 15 June 1944 Auschwitz 29,
55. 12 July 1944 Auschwitz 30,
56. 10 August 1944 Auschwitz 38,
57. 6 September 1944 Auschwitz 39,
58. 12 October 1944 Auschwitz 31,
59. 24 November 1944 Auschwitz 28,
60. 8 December 1944 Auschwitz 15,
61. 5 January 1945 Auschwitz 14,
62. 5 January 1945 Bergen-Belsen 6, 2 February 1945 Males ¯ Sachsenhausen 14, 2 February 1945 Females ¯ Ravensbruck 11,
63 Men ¯ planned for Sachsenhausen 11 Women ¯ planned for Ravensbruck 13

Total: Deportation from Berlin to the east 35,738

VOICES FROM AUSCHWITZ - Liberation of Auschwitz -

“So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance.”—Bart Stern

The train arrived in the middle of the night, so we were greeted by very bright lights shining down on us. We were greeted by soldiers, SS men, as well as women. We were greeted by dogs and whips, by shouting and screaming, orders to try to empty the train, by confusion... There is no way to describe your first coming to Auschwitz. —Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

And they said, “From now on you do not answer by your name. Your name is your number.” And the delusion, the disappointment, the discouragement that I felt, I felt like I was not a human person anymore. —Lilly Appelbaum Lublin Malnik

To commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum hosts a candle-lighting ceremony attended by the Washington, D.C. diplomatic community, Holocaust survivors, and the general public.

The United States officially commemorates the Holocaust during Days of Remembrance, which is held each April, marking the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Museum is mandated by the U.S. Congress to lead the nation in commemorating this day.

Visit http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/ for more information and resources.