2010 HOLOCAUST DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE, APRIL 11–18
Source for information USHMM

“When I was liberated in 1945 by the American Army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned—that never again will there be war, that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid…. I was so hopeful.”
— Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, during a June 2009 visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp with President Barack Obama, reflecting on his feelings at the moment he was freed.

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day is Sunday, April 11, 2010. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, the Museum has designated Stories of Freedom: What You Do Matters as the theme for the 2010 observance.

As Allied soldiers were closing in on Germany in the spring of 1945, they encountered dozens of concentration camps and were suddenly confronted with the reality of Nazi atrocities. The few surviving victims fully experienced the depths of human evil and depravity. For the soldiers, however, even the brutality of war did not prepare them for what they encountered.

Upon seeing Buchenwald, a member of the 333rd Engineers Regiment stated, “My feeling was that this was the most shattering experience of my life.” A U.S. Army chaplain trying to make sense of the carnage wrote to his wife, “This was a hell on earth if there ever was one.” After photographing Buchenwald, Margaret Bourke-White wrote to her editor at Life magazine, “The sights I have just seen are so unbelievable that I don’t think I will believe them myself until I’ve seen the photographs.” One American journalist wrote, “Buchenwald is beyond all comprehension. You just can’t understand it, even when you’ve seen it.”

And that was the problem. Survivors and other eyewitnesses understood and believed. But would the world? General Dwight D. Eisenhower grasped this problem and, after visiting a subcamp of Buchenwald, he addressed his staff: “I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he will know what he is fighting against.”

Eisenhower not only understood that this was a war that at its very essence was a struggle for the freedom of peoples and the ideals on which civilization is based but also that the horror was so extreme that it might not be believed. Realizing that a failure to believe would be a danger for the future of mankind, he ordered other soldiers to visit the camps, and encouraged journalists and members of Congress and the British Parliament to bear witness as well. He wanted others to be, just as he was, “in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” And ultimately he was right.

Sixty-four years later, standing at Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel by his side, President Barack Obama acknowledged the value of bearing witness: “We are here today because this work is not finished. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened—a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”

President Obama referred to the Holocaust as “our history,” understanding that Holocaust memory belongs to all of humanity. Because unlike the battle-hardened soldiers who liberated the camps and brought freedom to Europe, we now know that the unthinkable is thinkable. We know all too well the human capacity for evil and the catastrophic consequences of indifference in the face of evil. And we now realize that to preserve human freedom, what we do matters. Every day each of us has the potential to shape the world in which we live. By keeping these stories of freedom alive and building on Elie Wiesel’s original hope, each of us must work to promote human dignity and confront hate whenever and wherever it occurs. As the American soldiers who unwittingly became liberators 65 years ago understood, our future depends on it.

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...

Prewar German Laws Against The Jews Time-line

Antisemitism and the persecution of Jews represented a central tenet of Nazi ideology. In their 25-point Party Program, published in 1920, Nazi party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate Jews' political, legal, and civil rights.

Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power. During the first six years of Hitler's dictatorship, from 1933 until the outbreak of war in 1939, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. Many of those laws were national ones that had been issued by the German administration and affected all Jews. But state, regional, and municipal officials, on their own initiative, also promulgated a barrage of exclusionary decrees in their own communities. Thus, hundreds of individuals in all levels of government throughout the country were involved in the persecution of Jews as they conceived, discussed, drafted, adopted, enforced, and supported anti-Jewish legislation. No corner of Germany was left untouched.

1933-1934

The first wave of legislation, from 1933 to 1934, focused largely on limiting the participation of Jews in German public life. The first major law to curtail the rights of Jewish citizens was the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, according to which Jewish and "politically unreliable" civil servants and employees were to be excluded from state service. The new Civil Service Law was the German authorities' first formulation of the so-called Aryan Paragraph, a kind of regulation used to exclude Jews (and often by extension other "non-Aryans") from organizations, professions, and other aspects of public life.

In April 1933, German law restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities. In the same month, further legislation sharply curtailed "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent laws and decrees restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbade Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich disallowed Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian Interior Ministry denied admission of Jewish students to medical school.

At the national level, the Nazi government revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants; imposed a 1.5 percent quota on admission of "non-Aryans" to public schools and universities; fired Jewish civilian workers from the army; and, in early 1934, forbade Jewish actors to perform on the stage or screen.

Local governments also issued regulations that affected other spheres of Jewish life: in Saxony, Jews could no longer slaughter animals according to ritual purity requirements, effectively preventing them from obeying Jewish dietary laws.

1935

At their annual party rally held in Nuremberg in September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. These "Nuremberg Laws" excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Ancillary ordinances to these laws deprived them of most political rights. Jews were disenfranchised (that is, they had no formal expectation to the right to vote) and could not hold public office.

The Nuremberg Laws did not identify a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, the first amendment to the Nuremberg Laws defined anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual recognized himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism or who had not done so for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews.

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 heralded a new wave of antisemitic legislation that brought about immediate and concrete segregation: Jewish patients were no longer admitted to municipal hospitals in Düsseldorf, German court judges could not cite legal commentaries or opinions written by Jewish authors, Jewish officers were expelled from the army, and Jewish university students were not allowed to sit for doctoral exams.

Other regulations reinforced the message that Jews were outsiders in Germany; for example, in December 1935, the Reich Propaganda Ministry issued a decree forbidding Jewish soldiers to be named among the dead in World War I memorials.

"Aryanization"

Government agencies at all levels aimed to exclude Jews from the economic sphere of Germany by preventing them from earning a living. Jews were required to register their domestic and foreign property and assets, a prelude to the gradual expropriation of their material wealth by the state. Likewise, the German authorities intended to "Aryanize" all Jewish businesses, a process involving the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers, as well as the transfer of companies and enterprises to non-Jewish Germans, who bought them at prices officially fixed well below market value. From April 1933 to April 1938, "Aryanization" effectively reduced the number of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany by approximately two-thirds.

1936

In the weeks before and during the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympic Games held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berlin, respectively, the Nazi regime actually toned down much of its public anti-Jewish rhetoric and activities. The regime even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige. Likewise, Nazi leaders did not want to discourage international tourism and the revenue that it would bring during the Olympics year.

1937-1938

In 1937 and 1938, German authorities again stepped up legislative persecution of German Jews. The government set out to impoverish Jews and remove them from the German economy by requiring them to register their property. Even before the Olympics, the Nazi government had initiated the practice of "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. "Aryanization" meant the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers of a company and/or the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by government or Nazi party officials. In 1937 and 1938, the government forbade Jewish doctors to treat non-Jews, and revoked the licenses of Jewish lawyers to practice law.

Following the Kristallnacht (commonly known as "Night of Broken Glass") pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, Nazi leaders stepped up "Aryanization" efforts and enforced measures that succeeded increasingly in physically isolating and segregating Jews from their fellow Germans. Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones. German decrees and ordinances expanded the ban on Jews in professional life. By September 1938, for instance, Jewish physicians were effectively banned from treating "Aryan" patients.

The government required Jews to identify themselves in ways that would permanently separate them from the rest of the population. In August 1938, German authorities decreed that by January 1, 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin had to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J". As the Nazi leaders quickened their preparations for the European war of conquest that they intended to unleash, antisemitic legislation in Germany and Austria paved the way for more radical persecution of Jews.

Further Reading

Edelheit, Abraham J., and Hershel Edelheit. "Legislation, Anti-Jewish." In History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary, 299-331. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Schleunes, Karl A. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933-1939. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.
Source: USHMM http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005681

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

Holocaust 1944 Key Dates

January 22
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board. Roosevelt instructs the War Refugee Board to take measures to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death. The activities of the War Refugee Board contribute to saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation and death, possibly up to 200,000.

March 19
German troops occupy Hungary.

Early Spring
German authorities begin the evacuation of Lublin/Majdanek and deports the remaining inmates to Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Struthof, Ravensbrück, Plaszow, and Gross-Rosen.

April 5
Under German guidance, Hungarian authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow star.

April 16
German authorities begin to establish concentration points for the deportation of Jews from Hungary.

April 29-30
Hungarian authorities send the first two transports of Hungarian Jews into German custody.

May 15-July 9
Hungarian gendarmerie officials, under the guidance of German SS officials, deport around 440,000 Jews from Hungary. Most are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, upon arrival and after selection, SS functionaries kill the majority of them in gas chambers.

May 15-18
German authorities deport 7,003 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in order to “thin out” the Jewish population of Theresienstadt in preparation for the visit of representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners on these transports are incarcerated in a “Theresienstadt family camp” in Birkenau.

May 16
The SS attempts to liquidate the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz. Having been tipped off by a camp official, the inmates, armed with knives, shovels, and other weapons, refuse to leave their barracks. As a result of internal disagreement and in the face of resistance from the prisoners, the SS postpones the liquidation of the family camp until August 1944.

June 6
D-Day. British and American troops launch an invasion of France.

June 18-22, 1944
The Auschwitz Report, written by two Slovak Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, and composed a report in Slovak by the end of April, goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland

June 22-August 1
Soviet troops destroy German Army Group Center in eastern Belorussia and sweep forward to the east bank of the Vistula River across from the center of Warsaw, Poland.

June 23
With the permission of the RSHA, representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross inspect a “specially prepared” Theresienstadt camp-ghetto.

June 23-July 14
The SS resumes deportations from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center, deporting and killing more than 7,000 Jews.

June 24-August 14
War Refugee Board representative John Pehle and several U.S. Jewish organizations including the World Jewish Congress make several requests to the U.S. government to bomb the gas chambers at Birkenau or the rail lines leading to Birkenau. Assistant State Secretary of Defense John J. McCloy handles most of these requests. The U.S. government declines the requests on the grounds that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a military target, that such a mission would divert resources needed to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and that the speedy end of the war would be most effective in saving lives.

July 2
German authorities begin liquidating the labor camps in Wilno (Vilnius) and kill approximately 3,000 Jews in the Ponary (Paneriai) woods.

July 6
Regent Miklos Horthy of Hungary issues an order that the Hungarian government will cease deporting Jews from Hungary in Germany custody. Deportations halt on July 9.

July 8-12
As the Soviet army approaches, SS authorities liquidate the Kauen concentration camp, transferring around 8,000 Jews to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps in the German Reich.

July 9
Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary and with financing from the U.S. War Refugee Board. Along with numerous other legations, including the Swiss, the Turkish, the Italian, and several Latin American legations, the Sweden delegation, inspired by the activism of Wallenberg, effectively protects tens of thousands of Budapest Jews endangered by German and Hungarian plans to deport them.

July 13
The Soviet army liberates Wilno (Vilnius) in Lithuania.

July 23-24
Soviet troops liberate Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Although they had evacuated most of the remaining prisoners westward to evade the advancing Soviet army, the SS camp authorities are surprised by the rapid Soviet advance and fail to destroy the camp and the evidence of mass murder.

July 25-September 15
Allied forces break out of the Normandy beachhead, routing the German defenders. On August 25, Free French troops liberate Paris; by September 15, U.S. troops will reach the German border.

August 1
The Soviet army liberates the city of Kaunas.

August 1-October
The underground Polish Home Army rises against the Germans in an effort to play a role in the liberation of Warsaw.

August 2
The SS liquidates the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS authorities transport 1,408 Roma from the family camp and from Auschwitz I to Buchenwald concentration camp. SS men then murder the remaining 2,897 inmates of the Gypsy family camp in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

August 6
SS authorities evacuate the few remaining Jews at Kaiserwald to Buchenwald and Dachau via Stutthof.

August 9-August 28
SS and police units liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport more than 60,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 29-October 28
Slovak resistance organizations rise against the German-supported Slovakian government. Between September and October, German SS and police officials, assisted by German military units and Slovak fascist paramilitary units, deport approximately 12,600 Slovak Jews, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

October 3
SS units shoot around 3,000 prisoners at Vaivara: 1,500 Jewish men and women, 800 Soviet prisoners of war, and 700 Estonian political prisoners. The SS evacuates most of the surviving inmates to the Stutthof concentration camp.

October 7
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Sonderkommando (special detachment of Jewish prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) blows up Crematorium IV and kills the guards. About 250 participants of the revolt die in battle with the SS and police units. The SS and police units shoot 200 more members of the Sonderkommando after the battle ends.

October 28
After establishing it on August 27, 1943, as a subsidiary camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Mittelbau-Dora (also known as Nordhausen-Dora) as an autonomous concentration camp.

October 30
The last transport of Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz. During October, SS officials deport approximately 18,000 Jews from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz camp complex, where camp officials murder most of them in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

November 23
U.S. troops liberate Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.

November 25
At Heinrich Himmler's order, the Auschwitz camp authorities demolish the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

December 1944
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps officially designates the Bergen-Belsen “residence camp” a concentration camp.

December 11
At Hartheim, German authorities carry out the last gassing of inmates. Under SS guard, Mauthausen prisoners dismantle the killing facility. Between April and December 1940, German authorities killed more than 6,000 prisoners from Mauthausen, Gusen, and Dachau at Hartheim. In all, the Germans killed around 30,000 people, including concentration camp prisoners and victims of the “euthanasia” programs, at Hartheim.

Holocaust 1939 Key Dates

January 17
The German government prohibits Jews from working as nurses, veterinarians, holistic practitioners, and dentists.

January 24, 1939
In his capacity as Adolf Hitler's second in command as Führer of the German Reich and People, Hermann Göring authorizes Security Police and SD chief Reinhard Heydrich to coordinate solutions for the forced emigration of Jews from the Greater German Reich and to establish a Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Berlin.

January 30, 1939
In a speech to the German parliament, Hitler declares that in the event of another world war, for which he intended to hold "International Finance Jewry" responsible, the result would not be "the Bolshevization of the earth and with that the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."

February 9
Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Representative Edith Rogers of Massachusetts introduce a bill to permit the entry of 20,000 refugee children, ages 14 and under, from the Greater German Reich into the United States over the course of two years (1939 and 1940). The children would be granted entry without reference to the quota system. The bill dies in committee in the summer of 1939.

March 14
Under German pressure, Slovakia declares its independence from the Czecho-Slovak state.

March 15
German troops enter the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia, occupying the Czech provinces and establishing the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia."

May 13-June 17
Over 900 refugees aboard the St. Louis, most of them Jewish, leave Hamburg, Germany, for Cuba, in hope of there receiving entry visas to the United States. Cuba and the United States will refuse to accept the refugees, forcing them to return to Europe.

May 15
SS authorities establish Ravensbrück, the largest concentration camp for women, north of Berlin, Germany.

July 4, 1939
German authorities establish the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), with leadership handpicked by the German Security Police, as the sole legal Jewish organization in Germany.

August 23
The Soviet and German governments sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact, on the basis of which they later agree to invade and partition Poland and divide the remainder of eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

September 1
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.

September 2
SS authorities establish the civilian prisoner camp Stutthof, near Danzig (Gdansk). On January 7, 1942, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps will re-designate Stutthof as a concentration camp.

September 3
Honoring their guarantee of Poland's borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

September 17
Soviet troops invade Poland from the East.

September 21
The head of the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) and SD (Sicherheitsdienst), SS Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich meets with Secret Police (Sipo) and Security Service (SD) officials in Berlin. Heydrich issues instructions that (1) Polish Jews should be concentrated in major cities near major railroad lines, (2) all Jews should be transferred from the Reich to Poland, (3) the remaining 30,000 Roma (Gypsies) in Germany be deported to Poland, and (4) freight cars of the German railways (Reichsbahn) should be used to transport Jews and Roma from the Reich.

September 27
SS chief and Chief of German Police Heinrich Himmler establishes the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), a formal fusion of the Security Police (Gestapo and Kripo) and the SD under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich. Hitler will entrust the RSHA with coordinating the annihilation of the European Jews.

Autumn
In the autumn of 1939, Hitler signs an authorization (later backdated to September 1, 1939) that shields German physicians participating in the so-called "euthanasia" program from future prosecution. "Euthanasia" policy is designed to systematically kill Germans with mental and physical disabilities living in institutions, persons of both genders and all ages whom the participating physicians deemed “incurable” and thus "unworthy of life."

October 20-26
German security police officials deport approximately 3,800 Austrian, Czech, and Polish Jews from Vienna, Moravská Ostrava, and Katowice to a makeshift camp in Zarzecze near Nisko, Lublin District, Generalgouvernement.

October 26
Germany annexes the former Polish regions of Upper Silesia, West Prussia, Pomerania, Poznan, Ciechanow (Zichenau), part of Lodz, and the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk). From these newly annexed regions, the German government creates two new administrative districts (Reichsgaue): Danzig-West Prussia and Posen (Posen later becomes District Wartheland, commonly referred to as the Warthegau). German authorities place those areas of occupied Poland not annexed directly by Germany or by the Soviet Union under a German civilian administration, the Generalgouvernement.

November 23
German authorities require that all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement over the age of ten wear white armbands with a Star of David.

November 28
RSHA chief Reinhard Heydrich orders the beginning of the deportations of Jews and Poles from District Wartheland (an area of western Poland directly annexed to the German Reich) to the Generalgouvernement. Security Police officials initiate deportations three days later, on December 1. By 1941, they deport approximately 100,000 Jews from Wartheland and Danzig West-Prussia to the Generalgouvernement.

Holocaust 1942 Key Dates

January 7
SS authorities established the civilian prisoner camp Stutthof, near Danzig (Gdansk) on September 2, 1939. On January 7, 1942, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Stutthof as a concentration camp.

January 16
German authorities begin the deportation of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) from the Lodz ghetto to Chelmno. Between January 1942 and March 1943, the SS Special Detachment Lange kills at least 145,000 Jews and a few thousand Roma (Gypsies) at Chelmno. German authorities will deport approximately half of the victims from the ghetto in Lodz.

January 20
Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich convenes the Wannsee Conference in a villa outside Berlin. There he presents plans to coordinate a European-wide “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” to key officials from the German State and the Nazi Party.

March 1
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps opens a second camp at Auschwitz, called Auschwitz-Birkenau or Auschwitz II. The first prisoners are 945 Soviet prisoners of war and a few Polish prisoners from Auschwitz I. Auschwitz-Birkenau was originally designated for the incarceration of large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war. Although it continues to serve as a concentration camp, it also functions as a killing center from March 1942 until November 1944.

March 9
Slovak authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

March 17
German SS and police authorities begin the first deportations of Jews, from the ghettos in Lublin and Lvov, to the Belzec killing center. These are the first major deportations within the framework of Operation Reinhard. The SS Special Detachment stationed at Belzec kills at least 434,508 Jews in gas chambers with carbon monoxide gas between March 17 and December 31, 1942. The SS also kills an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) at Belzec.

March 26
Slovak authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from Slovakia. Between March and October 1942, Slovak authorities deport nearly 58,000 Slovak Jews into German custody. The Germans ultimately deport nearly 19,000 of them to Auschwitz and 39,000 to Lublin District, selecting 9,000 as forced laborers in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and deporting at least 24,378 on to the Sobibor killing center.

March 27
German authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from France. The first train contains approximately 1,000 Jews from the Compiègne and Drancy detention camps; German authorities send it to Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of August 1944, the Germans will deport more than 75,000 Jews from France to camps in the east, mostly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Fewer than 3,000 survive.

April 27
In the Netherlands, the German Higher SS and Police Leader issues a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

May
SS officials perform the first selection of victims for gassing at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. An SS medical officer selects weak, sick, and “unfit” prisoners from the isolation ward. These prisoners are put onto a truck and taken to a bunker, where they are killed with Zyklon B (prussic acid) gas. Between May 1940 and January 1945, camp authorities kill more than one million people at the Auschwitz camp complex. SS authorities do not register 865,000 arriving prisoners, mostly Jews, whom they most likely selected for gassing immediately upon arrival.

May 7
After trial gassings in April, the SS Special Detachment Sobibor begins gassing operations at the Sobibor killing center. By November 1943, the special detachment has killed at least 167,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war at Sobibor by means of carbon monoxide gas or by shooting.

May 27
In occupied Belgium, German authorities issue a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow star.

May 29
German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 1
The German Security Police and SD take control of the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands, initially established by the Dutch government to intern Jewish refugees who had entered the Netherlands illegally, and transform it into a transit camp.

June 1-June 6
German authorities begin deportations of Jews from the Krakow ghetto. By June 8, the Germans deport 6,000 Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec killing center.

June 7
On May 29, 1942, German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 11
Auschwitz concentration camp authorities establish a camp at the site of the I.G. Farben plant near Monowitz and redesignate the Buna Labor Detachment as the Buna (or Monowitz) subcamp of Auschwitz.

July 4
German authorities begin systematically gassing Jews at the Auschwitz killing center.

July 15
German authorities begin deportation of Dutch Jews from the Westerbork, Amersfoort, and Vught camps in the Netherlands to killing centers and concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied Poland. By September 3, 1944, around 100 trains have carried more than 100,000 people to Auschwitz, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen, including about 60,000 Jews to Auschwitz and about 34,000 Jews to Sobibor.

July 19
Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler issues a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to the killing centers or in closed camps located in the major cities.

July 22
Between July 22 and September 12, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

July 23
SS Special Detachment Treblinka begins gassing operations at the Treblinka killing center. Between July 1942 and November 1943, the SS special detachment at Treblinka murders an estimated 925,000 Jews and an unknown number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war in Treblinka 2.

July 28-31
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries kill approximately 9,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto in mass shootings.

August 1-29
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport more than 76,000 Jews from District Galicia in the Generalgouvernement, including 40,000 from the Lvov (Lwow; L'viv) ghetto, to the Belzec killing center, where the SS Special Detachment kills them.

August 5-17
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries liquidate the Radom ghetto in German-occupied Poland, deporting about 30,000 Jews, most of them to the Treblinka killing center.

August 13
Croat authorities begin deporting Jews in Croatia into German custody. The German authorities send the Croat Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 15-August 28
Gerhart Riegner, representative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Switzerland, sends a cable through the British Embassy to Rabbi Stephen Wise, the President of the WJC. Riegner explicitly informs Wise of the German implementation of their plan to physically annihilate the Jews of Europe.

September 12
Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

September 22-November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

October 26
With the assistance of collaborationist Norwegian officials, the Germans begin rounding up Jews in Norway. The Germans eventually deport approximately 770 Norwegian Jews to killing centers and concentration camps.

October 28
The first transport of Jews (mostly Austrian) from the Greater German Reich arrives in Auschwitz from Vienna. Between July 17, 1942, and October 28, 1944, German authorities have deported more than 70,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the Greater German Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

November 24
After receiving confirmation of the report on the German plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe from the U.S. Department of State, Rabbi Stephen Wise, President of the World Jewish Congress, publicizes the contents of the Riegner telegram, exposing German implementation of the “Final Solution.”

December 16
SS chief Heinrich Himmler issues a decree for the deportation of all Roma living in the Greater German Reich to a special family compound in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Under this decree, the German police authorities will deport nearly 18,000 Roma to Auschwitz in February 1943.

December 17
The Allied nations, including the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, issue a press release stating explicitly that the German authorities were engaging in mass murder of the European Jews, and that those responsible for this “bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination” would “not escape retribution.”

December 31
On July 19, 1942, SS chief Heinrich Himmler issued a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to killing centers or in closed camps located in major cities.