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Discovery of Concentration Camps file photo
Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust
24 Jul 1944 - 29 Apr 1945
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
Discovery of Concentration Camps
On 24 Jul 1944, the Soviet army marched near Lublin in Poland as their
campaign westward continued. They came across the abandoned Majdanek
concentration camp, whose prisoners already had been herded off on a
death march away from the advancing Soviet troops. Majdanek was burned
in attempt to mask its presence as the Germans retreated from the region
but the remains of gas chambers were evident. This was the first major
concentration camp discovered by those fighting against Germany, and the
evidence found was a brutal confirmation of the rumors of the existence
of such camps. In the following weeks, Soviet troops liberated the
abandoned camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
On 31 Aug 1944, the SS began evacuating the Natzweiler-Struthof camp,
herding its prisoners on a death march that resulted in 2,000 deaths en
route to the Dachau camps. In the following months, as the concentration
camps were evacuated by their commandants, the prisoners were engaged in
brutal death marches against the increasingly cold terrain. The
prisoners were often forced to march miles without adequate clothing or
travel long distances in open rail cars for days.
One of the most brutal camp evacuations was the death march from
Auschwitz camp in Jan 1945 where 15,000 prisoners died on during the
death march. On 27 Jan 1945, Soviet troops from the 100th Infantry
Division discovered Auschwitz 11 days after the Germans abandoned it,
and found remnants of what had been a terrible nightmare: 348,820 men's
suits and 836,515 women's dresses neatly folded, pyramids of dentures
and eyeglasses, and seven tons of women's hair.
In the west, camps were discovered and liberated by the western Allies
as well, including the Bergen-Belsen camp on 15 Apr 1945. Dwight
Eisenhower toured the remnants of a concentration camp near the town of
Gotha in Apr 1945 and recorded his experience that was indescribable
with words: "I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions
when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi
brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency.... I have
never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock." On 29 Apr,
members of the American 101st Airborne Division discovered a labor camp
that was part of the Dachau complex, the first concentration camp
established, near Landsberg at the foothills of the Alps. "The memory of
the starved, dazed men," remembered Richard Winters of Company E of the
506th Regiment, "who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them
through the chain-link fence, in the same manner that a beaten,
mistreated dog would cringe, leave feelings that cannot be described and
will never be forgotten."
Origins of the Holocaust
The Nazi Party had used relocation as an effective weapon against their
political enemies as early as 1933, but it was some time between 1937
and 1938 that members of the Nazi Party started to deport Jews into
concentration camps and ghettos. One of the first concentration camps
built was at Buchenwald, while the ghettos in Poland were widely known.
At first, Jews who held jobs that were regarded as critical to the war
effort were allowed to stay. However that soon changed about fall 1941,
when Gestapo agents started to order Jewish families out of their
apartments into trucks that headed for the east; most of them headed for
the concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, Byelorussia, Lithuania,
Latvia, and Russia. Margot Rosenthal of Berlin was able to hide from the
Gestapo agents until 5 Dec 1941 before she was found and forced to
relocate to a ghetto in Bavaria. "Send us something to eat, we are
starving," she wrote her friend Ruth Andreas-Friedrich in Berlin. "Don't
forget me. I cry every day." On 20 Jan 1942, Adolf Hitler signed into an
official policy the complete elimination of European Jews at a
conference in a villa at Wannsee, with the responsibility given to
Reinhard Heydrich. The policy was dubbed the "final solution of the
Jewish problem". In the same month, the concentration camp at Chelmno
began its operations which solely dedicated to the systematic
extermination of its prisoners with the experience the Nazi party had
already accumulated by experimenting methods of execution with 50,000
mentally deficient or terminally ill Germans. "We shall regain our
health only by eliminating the Jews", said Hitler on 22 Feb 1942 to a
group of close associates. "The Jews must vanish from the face of the
Earth", later proclaimed the Nazi governor of occupied Poland Hans
Frank. The work the Jews left behind, they reasoned, would be filled by
imported workers from the conquered nations. It was in camps like
Chelmno that between eight to eleven million Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses,
prisoners of war, Roma, Sinti, the disabled, homosexuals, political
dissidents, and Communists were murdered. Approximately half of those
perished were Jews, and half of them were Polish Jews. The instrument of
death used by the Nazi ranged from machine guns in the early phases to
carbon monoxide and Zyklon B gasses later in mass murder chambers.
The anti-Semitism rampant among the Nazi was not a new phenomenon.
Rather, it was built upon an anti-Semitic feeling that had long been
present in Europe. Even after WW2, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary still
grossly defined the word "Jew" as the following:
1. n. Person of Hebrew race; (fig.) scrupulous usurer or bargainer.
2. v.t. (colloq.) Cheat, overreach.
At the end of WW1 extremist beliefs squarely blamed the German defeat on
internal disharmony, particularly the presence of Jews and Marxists. A
1920 work by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche argued for discontinuing the
care of life unworthy of living such as the mentally dead and those
terminally ill; a gross misuse of this theory by Binding and Hoche
became a twisted justification for the Nazi Final Solution of the Jewish
Question that called for the extermination of the Jews and other
supposedly sub-humans. Hitler's disturbed mind offered him personal
prejudices against the Jews as well, for instance his suffering from
syphilis was blamed on a Jewish prostitute whom he had seen in Vienna.
While the disease had nothing to do with faith or genealogy, he believed
that the impurity German blood, tainted by Jews, was the cause of such
diseases and human sufferings. It was upon these unfounded beliefs that
Hitler supported the genocide.
Fried. Krupp and the Holocaust
While the Holocaust was a state-run atrocity, businesses were not
guilt-free. Large manufacturers such as I. G. Farben of Germany and H.
Rella of Austria, among many more, employed slave labor conscripted
directly from the concentration camps. Fried. Krupp, a German munitions
firm, was by far the most heinous offender. Krupp began down the path by
acquiring industries in the conquered countries by questionable means
from the first days of the European War. In France, Yugoslav Jew Robert
Rothschild's tractor factory in France was given to Krupp on 27 Aug 1942
(and Rothschild was eventually murdered at Auschwitz. But that was only
to be shadowed by the firm's later atrocities. Since 1940, Krupp had
been permanently housing slave labor. At first, they were treated with
"apologetic hospitality", according to William Manchester. They arrived
on furnished trains, they were given fresh sandwiches and sausages upon
arrival, and Krupp employees helped them move their luggage into their
bunkers. To most efficiently exploit the slave labor, in the summer of
1942, Auschwitz Jews were brought to build Krupp's Berthawerk factory in
Silesia. In Berlin, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris protested, arguing the
enlistment of slave labor violated the clauses of the Geneva Convention
and the Hague agreements, but the statements by Canaris and others fell
on deaf ears. Then, it all got worse. Not only the luxuries disappeared,
the basic necessities disappeared one by one. Before long, the slaves
from concentration camps were wearing clothing made of burlap and wooden
clogs. Meals began to be skipped over frequently; when the slaves were
fed, the meals were mostly just a watery soup with a paper-thin slice of
bread. Corporal punishment also became more frequent.
What really set Krupp apart from the other firms that employed slave
labor was Krupp's ruthless efficiency. Aware of the Nazi policy of
exterminating Jews from Europe, Krupp suggested "extermination through
work" to Hitler some time in 1942. The SS initially opposed it, but
approval came down after Krupp suggested commissions would be paid for
each slave assigned. In Sep 1942, Hitler authorized a new policy that
allowed Krupp representatives to visit concentration camps to pick out
their laborers.
Between 1942 and 1945, Krupp employed forced labor in nearly 100
factories across Germany, Poland, Austria, France, and Czechoslovakia.
The number was about 100,000 persons. As the Krupp factories filled up
with slave labor, their living quarters became no different than the
concentration camps they had come from. Triple-layer bunks, a familiar
image of concentration camps, were common in Krupp quarters for the
slaves. Guard towers and barbed wires, too, were everyday sights. There
were Krupp employees who protested against the mal-treatment of slaves,
especially those of Eastern European origins, but their efforts were too
insignificant to make a difference. All they could do was sneaking in
some food to the slaves when they could.
Tad Goldsztajn, one of the slaves at Essen, recalled later:
"We were not slaves; our status was much lower. True, we were deprived
of freedom and became a piece of property which our master put to work.
But here the similarity with any known form of slavery ends, for we were
a completely expendable piece of property. We did not even compare
favorably with Herr Krupp's machinery, which we tended. The equipment in
the shop was well maintained. It was operated with care, oiled, greased
and allowed to rest; its longevity was protected. We, on the other hand,
were like a piece of sandpaper which, rubbed once or twice, becomes
useless and is thrown away to be burned with the waste."
Goldsztajn was not exaggerating. Especially toward the end of the war,
Krupp treatment for the slaves could only be described as widespread
sadism. The slave drivers, some Krupp employees and others SS men,
regularly punished slaves for no apparent reason. The luckier ones got
away with shaved heads. Others were hit with fists, whips, rubber tubes,
and sometimes metal pipes. During the cold winters, the facilities were
completely inadequate to shield them against the cold, and the slaves
had nothing more than their burlap clothing and another piece of burlap
as blankets; coupled with the inadequate food, many froze to death.
Sanitary conditions should have been better the concentration camps, but
they were not. While some concentration camps lacked toilets for their
prisoners, Krupp had them, but some of the slaves were not allowed to
use them; to make the Jewish slaves feel that they were sub-human as
dictated by Nazi ideology, they were forced to squat outside factories
and bunkers to relieve themselves, in full view of passers by. Diseases,
therefore, became rampant, and there were little medical help for them.
Hospitals for slaves, usually without any medical professionals, were
often simply a quarantine zone with a handful of beds where the sick
only got worse.
Epilogue
After the war, the term Holocaust was used to describe the systematic
murder the Nazi Party had committed, particularly the genocide of the
Jews. Advocates such as Simon Wiesenthal dedicated their efforts in
finding those responsible for the murders and bringing them to justice.
Sources: the Arms of Krupp, Band of Brothers, Crusade in Europe, the
Fall of Berlin, the Last Lion, University of San Diego, Wikipedia.
Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust Interactive Map
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Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust Timeline
22 Feb 1933 Initial plans were made for a detention camp in
Oranienburg, Germany.
12 Mar 1933 Oranienburg north of Berlin, Germany became the site of the
first German concentration camp.
20 Mar 1933 Dachau Concentration Camp was established in Germany by the
order of Heinrich Himmler; it was to be guarded by men of the SS.
1 Oct 1933 SS official Theodor Eicke expanded the punishment directives
at Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany; these directives were later
applied to all camps until the end of the European War.
4 Oct 1933 In Germany, the "Law for Literary Leaders" dictated the
content of what could now be written. A section of the law excluded Jews
from the press, while another required all editors to be Aryans.
17 Nov 1933 The first non-political prisoners were sent to
concentration camps in Germany.
24 Nov 1933 Germany passed laws noting that a habitual criminal,
defined as a person convicted of two criminal offenses, could be
detained in a concentration camp indefinitely.
28 Feb 1934 The German Army ordered the dismissal of all "Jews" (all
non-Aryans) from military service.
12 Apr 1934 German justice department issued orders to prevent
"improper usage of protective custody" to prevent those who did not
deserve to be sent to concentration camps from being sent there; this
ruling remained valid until 1938.
23 Apr 1934 The Sonnenburg and Brandenburg concentration camps closed.
1 May 1934 During this month, SS leader Theodor Eicke was given the
task by Heinrich Himmler to reorganize all concentration camps, using
Eicke's former direct responsiblity, Dachu Concentration Camp, as a model.
25 May 1934 Concentration camps in Emsland, Lower Saxony, Germany were
placed under the jurisdiction of the German justice department; the SA
provided guards for the camps.
30 Jun 1934 Oranienburg Concentration Camp in Germany was transferred
under the jurisdiction of the German justice department.
1 Jul 1934 During this month, as "Night of the Long Knives" shattered
the SA organization in Germany, the SS took over control of guarding
concentration camps.
7 Jul 1934 German SS official Theodor Eicke was appointed the Inspector
of Concentration Camps and of SS Guard Associations.
10 Dec 1934 All concentration camps in Germany were transferred under
the Inspekteur der KL (Inspector for Concentration Camps, or IKL), who
was a part of the SS organization; the only exception was the Kislau
Concentration Camp, which remained under the Interior Ministry of Baden.
8 Jan 1935 The Gestapo prison Columbia-Haus in Berlin, Germany became a
concentration camp.
15 Mar 1935 In the Hohnstein trial in Dresden, Germany, members of the
SA organization who staffed the Hohenstein Concentration Camp were
sentenced to prison for mistreating concentration camp prisoners; in Nov
of the same year, they were all pardoned without exception.
1 Apr 1935 In Germany a nationwide network of clinics for racial
hygiene was established with the aim of collecting and processing data
about citizens' racial purity. The information obtained would provide a
perverse instrument for social discrimination throughout the country.
1 Oct 1935 As a reaction to criticism from the German justice
department on the increasing number of "unnatural deaths" in
concentration camps, the Gestapo released behavior guidelines for the
guards during this month.
14 Nov 1935 After lengthy argument a supplement to the German
Citizenship law was published, which laid down that a German with two
Jewish grandparents, who was himself an orthodox Jew, or was married to
a Jew, or was the offspring of a marriage with a Jew, was Jewish under
the law. However all other half or quarter Jews were still German
citizens. Those who were considered Jews under this supplement were
denied voting rights and forbidden to hold public office, regardless of
whether he was a WW1 veteran (who had enjoyed special privileges
previously despite being Jewish).
5 Jun 1936 Esterwegen Concentration Camp in Germany was closed to be
converted to be a punishment camp; prisoners of Esterwegen were ordered
to build the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
26 Jun 1936 The German military began to exclude Jews from service.
1 Aug 1936 The 1936 Olympic Games started in Berlin, Germany;
anti-Semitic posters were temporarily removed for the duration of the
events.
28 Aug 1936 German authorities arrested large numbers of Jehovah's
Witnesses, sending some of them to concentration camps.
5 Nov 1936 Columbia-Haus Concentration Camp in Berlin, Germany was closed.
23 Jan 1937 Heinrich Himmler disclosed that about 8,000 prisoners were
in concentration camps across Germany for protective custody.
23 Feb 1937 Heinrich Himmler issued the directive to arrest about 2,000
"professional and habitual criminals" in Germany on 9 Mar 1937 in one
swift strike; they were to be sent to concentration camps.
15 Jul 1937 In Germany, the construction of Buchenwald Concentration
Camp began by the inmates of the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp.
14 Dec 1937 German National Ministry of the Interior provided legal
means for the police to commit criminals to concentration camps directly.
25 Jan 1938 German National Ministry of the Interior ordered that
protective custody must be served in concentration camps and not in
institutions of the justice department.
21 Mar 1938 The female prisoners at Moringen Concentration Camps were
transferred to the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp, which was a camp
exclusively for women prisoners.
25 Mar 1938 The Evian Conference, called for by US President Franklin
Roosevelt, was held in Evian, France to discuss the arrangement of homes
for Jewish refugees who had fled from Germany. Ultimately the conference
would result in nothing.
26 Apr 1938 Germany enacted a law that required authorization for Jews
to sell or rent a company.
3 May 1938 Construction began in Germany for the Flossenburg
Concentration Camp.
9 Jun 1938 The main synagogue in München (Munich) in southern Germany
was demolished.
15 Jun 1938 1,500 previously-convicted Jews, including minor offenses
such as traffic violations, were sent to concentration camps in Germany.
15 Jul 1938 Representatives from the United States, United Kingdom,
France, and 29 other nations met at Évian-les-Bains, France to discuss
the issue of Jewish refugees fleeing out of Germany; no solid conclusion
was reached.
21 Jul 1938 Germany passed laws requiring Jews to carry identification
cards, effective 1 Jan 1939.
28 Jul 1938 Germany passed laws revoking medical certifications of
Jewish doctors, effective 30 Sep 1938; thereafter Jewish doctors could
only serve as nurses for Jewish patients.
8 Aug 1938 The building of Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria began.
10 Aug 1938 The main synagogue at Nürnberg, Germany was destroyed.
17 Aug 1938 Adolf Hitler ordered that, in time of war, guard duties of
concentration camps would be carried out by older members of the general
SS; SS members older than the age of 45 began training for guard duties
shortly after.
17 Aug 1938 Germany passed laws requiring Jews to add either "Israel"
or "Sara" to their names, effective 1 Jan 1939.
12 Sep 1938 Germany forbade Jews from attending public cultural events.
27 Sep 1938 Germany passed law to revoke licenses to practice law for
all Jewish attorneys, effective 30 Nov 1938; thereafter Jewish attorneys
could only act as "consultants" for other Jews on matters of law.
5 Oct 1938 Germany revoked passports belonging to Jews and made
re-issuance of new passports more difficult; the new passports were
stamped "J" to signify Jewish ownership.
28 Oct 1938 Germany expelled 15,000 to 17,000 Jews of Polish origin
across the Polish border.
1 Nov 1938 German newspaper Kinzigwacht declared the town of
Gelnhausen, Germany Judenfrei, "Free of Jews", after the town's
synagogue closed its doors and the Jews forced to moved out.
15 Nov 1938 In Germany, Jewish children were expelled from schools.
28 Nov 1938 German police issued orders restricting movement of Jews.
3 Dec 1938 German government revoked driver's licenses held by Jews.
8 Dec 1938 A decree on "Combating the Gypsy Plague" was published by
Heinrich Himmler as Chief of the Reich Police. Under the decree German
Gypsies would now be considered as an alien race and therefore be liable
for deportation or forced Labour.
24 Jan 1939 Germany established the National Central Office for Jewish
Emigration with branch offices in Vienna and Prague.
18 Apr 1939 Slovakia passed anti-Semitic laws.
30 Apr 1939 Germany passed laws in preparation to move Jewish families
into buildings reserved for Jewish residences.
15 May 1939 Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for women was established in
Germany.
26 Jun 1939 German Gestapo ordered all Czechs who were deemed unwilling
to work, politically active, or deemed to have anti-German beliefs were
to be placed in concentration camps.
6 Jul 1939 The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed.
1 Sep 1939 Adolf Hitler authorized Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt
to "grant merciful deaths" for the mentally ill and those who were
suffering from incurable diseases. This was the beginning of Action T4
euthanasia program.
1 Sep 1939 Germany placed a curfew on German Jews: 9pm in the summer,
8pm in the winter.
1 Sep 1939 Reinhard Heydrich presided a meeting attended by the heads
of Security Police and Commanders of Special Units, during which the
deportation of the "remaining 30,000 Gypsies" from Germany to the
soon-to-be-conquered territory of Poland was ordered.
2 Sep 1939 The Germans began the construction of Stutthof Concentration
Camp with labor of 65,000 Polish Christians.
3 Sep 1939 German government issued orders that executions by members
of the SS were to be carried out in concentration camps, effective 20
Sep 1939.
8 Sep 1939 German troops burned 200 Jews alive in a synagogue and
executed 30 Jews in the public square in Bedzin, Poland.
9 Sep 1939 German Gestapo ordered all misbehaving Polish citizens to be
arrested and placed in Dachau Concentration Camp in southern Germany.
19 Sep 1939 The German Army told the SS organization to hold off the
rounding up and mass murder of Polish Jews until Dec 1939 when the Army
would be out of the area.
23 Sep 1939 German police began confiscating radios from Jews.
24 Sep 1939 German Einsatzgruppen murdered 800 members of Polish
intelligentsia at Bydgoszcz, Poland.
27 Sep 1939 Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany was temporarily closed
until 18 Feb 1940 for use of training SS units; prisoners of Dachau were
sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
1 Oct 1939 The German euthanasia program began on the ill and feeble.
8 Oct 1939 The first Jewish ghetto was established in Piotrkow, Poland.
10 Oct 1939 The first deportation of Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jews
into concentration camps in Poland took place.
12 Oct 1939 First deportation of Jews from Austria and the Protectorate
Bohemia and Moravia to Poland took place.
17 Oct 1939 Reinhard Heydrich ordered all Gypsy populations to cease
travelling or face a concentration camp.
18 Oct 1939 Jews in Wloclawek, Poland were forced to wear the Star of
David. On the same day, the first Jewish ghetto was established in
Lublin, Poland.
21 Oct 1939 Germans began deporting Poles from Poznan to make the
province "Germanic".
26 Oct 1939 German authoriities decreed that Polish Jews between the
age of 14 and 60 were to be conscripted as forced laborers.
2 Nov 1939 The first transport of Polish women arrived at Ravensbrück
Concentration Camp in Germany.
14 Nov 1939 Theodor Eicke was named the commander of all SS Death's
Head units; Richard Glucks was to take over Eicke's former position as
the inspector of concentration camps.
15 Nov 1939 Jews living in Reichsgau Wartheland (former Polish
territory, annexed into Germany) began to be deported into the General
Government region of former Poland.
17 Nov 1939 Massive Czech student uprising resulted in executions of 9
student leaders, the closing of Czech colleges and universities, and the
movement of over 1,000 students to concentration camps.
23 Nov 1939 All Jews above the age of 10 in the General Government in
German-occupied Poland were required to wear the Star of David.
23 Dec 1939 German SS organization decreed that Polish workers who left
their workplace without permission were to be arrested and sent to
concentration camps.
1 Feb 1940 SS-Reichsführer Himmler ordered inspections of potential
sites for a planned concentration camp. Among those inspected was the
camp at Oswiecim, Poland, known in German as Auschwitz.
10 Feb 1940 Jews from Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) and Stralsund in
Pommern, Germany were deported to ghettos in Lublin, Poland.
12 Feb 1940 The first deportation of German Jews into occupied Poland
took place.
21 Feb 1940 The future site of Auschwitz Concentration Camp was found
in Poland.
23 Mar 1940 Deportation of Jews in German-occupied Eastern Europe
continued despite of Hermann Göring's order for a temporary pause.
4 Apr 1940 Aktion 14 F 13 began; it was the first documented proof that
the Nazi German regime conducted mass extermination of the handicapped
in concentration camps.
27 Apr 1940 Chief of the German SS organization Heinrich Himmler gave
the order to convert the 22 former artillery barrack buildings at
Oswiecim, Poland into a concentration camp, later to be more commonly
known by its German name, Auschwitz.
30 Apr 1940 The first guarded Jewish ghetto was established at Lodz,
Poland; it was later sealed off with 230,000 Jews inside.
25 May 1940 The first transport of prisoners arrived at the
Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp in occupied Austria region of
southern Germany.
10 Jun 1940 The Gestapo organization took control of the Theresienstadt
Fortress in occupied Czechoslovakia and began its conversion into a
concentration camp.
14 Jun 1940 A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów
become the first prisoners of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
16 Jul 1940 Vichy France revoked the French citizenship of naturalized
Jews. Meanwhile, in German-occupied Alsace-Lorraine, 22,000 French
citizens were forcibly deported to France.
28 Aug 1940 Radio broadcast in Vichy France announced that laws
protecting Jews in France had been removed.
1 Sep 1940 The coke-fired two-retort furnace in the Auschwitz
Concentration Camp crematorium was put into service for the disposal of
bodies.
2 Oct 1940 Adolf Hitler ordered Hans Frank and other Nazi officials in
occupied Poland to keep the standard of living low and to deprive the
Polish population of education, for that the Polish people were now mere
low laborers of Germany. Additionally, he ordered that the Polish gentry
to be exterminated.
3 Oct 1940 Vichy France passed anti-Semitic laws that excluded Jews
from positions in the army, government, commerce, industries, and the
press. The law was signed by Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Raphaël
Alibert, Marcel Peyrouton, Paul Baudouin, Yves Bouthillier, Charles
Huntzinger, and François Darlan.
9 Oct 1940 The occupation government in the Netherlands banned Jews and
half-Jews from public employment.
12 Oct 1940 German Governor-General of occupied Poland Hans Frank
ordered 138,000 Jews in Warsaw to move into the city's ghetto.
16 Oct 1940 German authorities ordered the establishment of Warsaw
ghettos for Jews in occupied Poland.
15 Nov 1940 The Warsaw ghetto in Poland was sealed from the rest of the
city, enclosing 400,000 Jews inside.
22 Nov 1940 The first execution by shooting took place at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp; 40 men from Katowice, Poland were shot between 0000
and 0020 hours by SS men in retaliation of assault on a police official.
2 Jan 1941 German leaders Himmler and Heydrich categorized
concentration camps into three categories for different types of
prisoners, but in practice this categorization had little actual effect.
22 Jan 1941 The first massacre of Jews in Romania took place.
22 Feb 1941 430 Dutch Jews were deported from Amsterdam to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp as reprisal for the murder of a Dutch Nazi Party member.
1 Mar 1941 Heinrich Himmler paid his first visit to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. During the visit, he ordered Commandant Rudolf Höss
to expand the current camp to hold a total of 30,000 prisoners, expand
the camp to Birkenau with capacity for 100,000 prisoners, supply 10,000
prisoners to work for the nearby I.G. Farben factory, and to expand the
camp's agricultural and industrial output.
6 Mar 1941 New German laws decreed that Polish farm workers were not to
complain, were denied from any cultural events, and were forbidden to
have sexual intercourse.
9 Mar 1941 Polish Jews from the city of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) began to
be deported to the town of Chrzanow in southern Poland.
9 Mar 1941 Vichy France announced that authorization was now needed for
Jews to sell or rent a company.
6 Apr 1941 A transport of 1,021 prisoners from Pawiak Prison in Warsaw,
Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Famous actors Bronislaw
Dardzinski, Tadeusz Hertman Kanski, Stefan Jaracz, Zbigniew Nowakowski,
and Leon Schiller were among them, arrested for the murder of actor Igo
Sym who collaborated with German propaganda efforts.
14 Apr 1941 The first major mass arrest of Jews in Paris, France took
place.
17 Apr 1941 SS-Untersturmfuehrer Maximilian Grabner at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp announced that urns containing the ashes of Polish
political prisoners who died at Auschwitz no longer needed to be sent to
their families.
1 May 1941 Groß-Rosen Concentration Camp, formerly a satellite camp of
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, became an independent camp. It was
located in Groß-Rosen, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Rogoznica, Poland).
14 May 1941 3,600 French Jews in Paris, France were arrested.
15 May 1941 Dr. Sigmund Rascher requested Heinrich Himmler via a letter
requesting concentration camp prisoners to be placed in his disposal to
conduct experiments in decompression chambers which simulated high
altitude environments.
22 Jun 1941 Jews from the Dorohoi district of Romania were branded as
communists and spies and transported by cattle cars to concentration
camps in Tirgu and Craiova.
25 Jun 1941 Lithuanian militiamen in Kovno were encouraged by German
security officers to stage a pogrom, and that night 1,500 Jews were
murdered with particular savagery.
27 Jun 1941 In Kaunas, Lithuania, a group of Lithuanian nationalists
gathered more than 50 Jewish men in a horse stable and beat them
violently with iron bars in public view. None of the victims survived
the Lietukis Garage Massacre.
29 Jun 1941 Romanian troops conducted a pogrom against Jews in the town
of Jassy, killing 10,000.
2 Jul 1941 The local police in Riga, Latvia was organized by a German
commander to murder 400 Jews and burn down all Riga's synagogues.
8 Jul 1941 Jews in the Baltic states were forced to wear the Star of David.
21 Jul 1941 Outside Minsk, Byelorussia, German SS troops ordered 30
Byelorussians to bury 45 Jews alive in a pit; upon meeting refusal, the
SS men executed the entire group of 75 by machine gun fire.
21 Jul 1941 The Majdanek Concentration Camp near Lublin, Poland became
operational.
22 Jul 1941 Vichy France enacted a law that required Jews to register
their businesses, which in effect excluded all Jews from commerce and
industry.
26 Jul 1941 3,800 Lithuanian Jews were killed during a pogrom in Kovno.
28 Jul 1941 A special commission created on Heinrich Himmler's orders
arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp to select prisoners within the
framework of the "Euthanasia Program" for the incurably ill, extended in
1940 to Jews and in the middle of 1941 to prisoners of concentration
camps. The 573 selected, most were sick Polish prisoners from Block 15,
were told that they were to be transferred to other camps for easier
work because of their conditions. At last moment, two German criminals
Johann Siegruth and Ernst Krankemann were added to the list. The 575
were sent to Sonnenstein Castle under the supervision of Franz Hössler
and were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in a gas chamber disguised
as a shower room.
15 Aug 1941 In Germany it became a criminal offence for Jews not to
wear the yellow Star of David.
20 Aug 1941 After sundown, the Germans conducted another round-up of
Jews in Paris, France. Their French passports were confiscated, and they
would eventually be deported to the Drancy Concentration Camp and later
to various concentration camps in Germany and Eastern Europe.
26 Aug 1941 The Hungarian Army rounded up 18,000 Jews at
Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine.
1 Sep 1941 All Jews above the age of six in Germany and occupied lands
were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David with the word "Jude"
inscribed in black within; this was to be effective 19 Sep 1941.
3 Sep 1941 Experimental trials of gas chambers at Block II of Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland began, using Soviet prisoners of war as
test subjects. Zyklon-B was used.
5 Sep 1941 The exhibition "Le Juif et la France" ("The Jews and
France") opened in Paris, France based on the work of the anti-Semitic
French Professor George Montandon with the urging of the Nazi German
occupation.
6 Sep 1941 The Vilna Ghetto was established in Lithuania, containing
40,000 Jews.
12 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 993
adult male, 1,670 adult female, and 771 children, all Jews, were killed
in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 3,334 people.
16 Sep 1941 German troops massacred Jews en masse in Vinnitsa, Ukraine.
17 Sep 1941 The general deportation of German Jews began.
17 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 337
adult male, 687 adult female, and 247 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,271 people. 4 Communists were also
executed in Vilnius by Jager's Einsatzgruppen on this date.
20 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 128
adult male, 179 adult female, and 99 children, all Jews, were killed in
Nemencing, Lithuania for a total of 403 people.
22 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 512
adult male, 744 adult female, and 511 children, all Jews, were killed in
Riess, Lithuania for a total of 1,767 people.
23 Sep 1941 The German authorities in Paris, France issued a decree
that stated that any French man concealing or assisting a British Airman
would be shot, and any woman would be sent to a concentration camp.
24 Sep 1941 The German Einsatzgruppe C set up its headquarters in Kiev,
Ukraine.
25 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 215
adult male, 229 adult female, and 131 children, all Jews, were killed in
Jahiuna, Lithuania for a total of 575 people.
27 Sep 1941 23,000 Jews were massacred at Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine.
27 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 989
adult male, 1,636 adult female, and 821 children, all Jews, were killed
in Eysisky, Lithuania for a total of 3,446 people.
28 Sep 1941 A notice was posted in Kiev, Ukraine, requiring all Jews in
the region to gather at Dorogozhitshaya Street at 0700 hours the next day.
30 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 366
adult male, 483 adult female, and 597 children, all Jews, were killed in
Trakai, Lithuania for a total of 1,446 people.
1 Oct 1941 Operations began at Majdanek Concentration Camp near Lublin,
Poland.
4 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 432 adult
male, 1,115 adult female, and 436 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,983 people.
6 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 213 adult
male, 359 adult female, and 390 children, all Jews, were killed in
Semiliski, Lithuania for a total of 962 people.
9 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 1,169
adult male, 1,840 adult female, and 717 children, all Jews, were killed
in Svenciany, Lithuania for a total of 3,726 people.
14 Oct 1941 Germany announced that all Jews within the 1933 border
would be deported; these Jews were beginning to be deported to ghettos
in Poland, Byelorussia, and Ukraine.
15 Oct 1941 German SS-Brigadeführer Franz Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A
sent a 130-page report to Berlin, Germany on this date. He reported
that, among other things, 71,105 Jews had been liquidated in Lithuania
and 30,000 Jews in Latvia, and 3,387 Communists in Russia.
16 Oct 1941 A round of mass deportation of Jews from Germany began.
16 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 382
adult male, 507 adult female, and 257 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,146 people.
17 Oct 1941 The first transport of deported Czech Jews departed for
various locations in Eastern Europe.
17 Oct 1941 The German propaganda ministry declared Luxembourg
Judenfrei, "Free of Jews".
21 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 718
adult male, 1,063 adult female, and 586 children, all Jews, were killed
in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 2,367 people.
23 Oct 1941 2,014 German Jews originally from Cologne, Germany arrived
at the Lodz Ghetto in Poland.
23 Oct 1941 The German government banned the emigration of Jews.
25 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 1,776
adult female and 812 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius,
Lithuania for a total of 2,578 people.
27 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 946
adult male, 184 adult female, and 73 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,203 people.
28 Oct 1941 34,000 Jews were massacred in Kiev, Ukraine.
29 Oct 1941 15,000 Jews were massacred in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania.
Their remains were buried in mass graves at the Ninth Fort.
30 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 382
adult male, 789 adult female, and 362 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,553 people.
6 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 340 adult
male, 749 adult female, and 252 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,341 people.
9 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 76 adult
male, 77 adult female, and 18 children, all Jews, were killed in
Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 171 people.
16 Nov 1941 On this Sunday, a Catholic Mass was secretly held in a dark
aisle between bunks on the second floor of Block 4 at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp.
19 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 6
prisoners of war and 8 Polish Jews were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania.
20 Nov 1941 In Vilnius, Lithuania, 3 prisoners of war were executed as
later reported by the Jager Report on 1 Dec 1941.
20 Nov 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp were
inactivated for servicing; camp commandant ordered that corpses of
prisoners were to be transported to Birkenau (not yet a camp) for
burying in mass graves until the servicing was done on 3 Dec 1941.
24 Nov 1941 The Theresienstadt camp was established in occupied
Czechoslovakia to serve as a transit point for Jews en route to
concentration camps to the east.
25 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 9 adult
male, 46 adult female, and 8 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius,
Lithuania for a total of 63 people. Additionally, 1 Polish national was
also executed for possession of arms.
30 Nov 1941 Latvian and German Jews were massacred near Riga, Latvia.
1 Dec 1941 SS-Standartenfuhrer Jager submitted a report dated on this
day, noting that his Einsatzgruppen, operating in Lithuania, had killed
99,804 Jews in that country to this date. In the same report, the
detachment also under Jager sent to Minsk, Byelorussia reported killing
620 adult male, 1,285 adult female, and 1,126 children, all Jews; 19
communists were also executed in Minsk by this detachment.
3 Dec 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp that was
inactivated on 20 Nov for service were reactivated.
8 Dec 1941 Chelmno Concentration Camp near Lodz, Poland began gassings;
it was the first large camp established for the purpose of mass
exterminations.
15 Dec 1941 German SS personnel began killing the remaining Jews in
Liepaja, Latvia, most of whom were women and children.
16 Dec 1941 The German SS slaughter of Jews in Liepaja, Latvia continued.
16 Dec 1941 The refugee ship Struma arrived in Istanbul, Turkey with
769 Romanian Jews aboard; without permission to enter Palestine, they
would remain on the ship for the following two months.
17 Dec 1941 2,749 Jews, mostly women and children, were killed on the
beach near Liepaja, Latvia. Most Jews of Liepaja were now eliminated,
short of a small left alive to be used as slave laborers.
21 Dec 1941 Isopescu, the Romanian governor of Golta, Transnistria,
Romania (now Pervomaisk, Ukraine), ordered the execution of Jews at
Bogdanovka Concentration Camp. 4,000 Jews were moved into cow sheds then
burned alive. An unknown number of Jews were marched into a ravine and
executed by gunfire in the following four days. The massacre ended in
the evening of 24 Dec 1941.
24 Dec 1941 94 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died
in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On the same day, 37 prisoners from
block 20 of Auschwitz were killed by heart phenol injection.
25 Dec 1941 60 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died
in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
30 Dec 1941 10,000 Jews were massacred in Simferopol, Russia (now Ukraine).
9 Jan 1942 A transport of 1,005 Jews departed from Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia for locations in Eastern
Europe. Most of them were sent to Riga, Latvia.
15 Jan 1942 In Poland, German authorities began to deport Jews from the
Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno Concentration Camp.
26 Jan 1942 Heinrich Himmler announced his plan to send 100,000 Jewish
men and 50,000 Jewish women to concentration camps for use as forced
laborers within the following four weeks.
31 Jan 1942 German SS Einsatzgruppe A reported a tally of 229,052 Jews
killed in the Baltic States and in Byelorussia, while Estonia was
reported to be free of Jews. Extermination activities had paused in
Lithuania, it reported, but would soon be picked up again.
12 Feb 1942 Sigmund Rascher submitted a report on the effect of nude
women on men who had been exposed to extreme cold; this project was
ordered by Himmler. Rascher noted that for the most part, warm baths
were more effective.
23 Feb 1942 Turkish troops boarded the disabled passenger ship Struma
at Istanbul, Turkey; Struma had departed Romania in Dec 1941 with 769
Romanian Jewish refugees on board and had been at Istanbul for two
months. The Turkish troops prepared Struma for towing, and before the
day ended she was towed through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, where
she was abandoned with all passengers still aboard.
24 Feb 1942 Passenger ship Struma, powerless with broken-down engines,
drifted in the Black Sea after being abandoned by Turkish authorities on
the previous day. In the morning, Soviet submarine SC-213 sank Struma
with one torpedo, killing 768 of 769 Romanian Jewish refugees aboard.
1 Mar 1942 Extermination of Jews at Sobibór Concentration Camp in
occupied Poland began.
13 Mar 1942 1,200 sick prisoners from the hospital within Auschwitz I
camp who were judged as not able to recover were transferred to the BIb
sector of Birkenau camp, where they were killed. Their bodies were
transported back to Auschwitz I to be cremated.
13 Mar 1942 In Poland, The Belzec Concentration Camp opened for
operation with a transport of 6,000 Jews from Mielec, Poland.
15 Mar 1942 At Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, 28 prisoners died in the
hospital. At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, SS guards killed 131 prisoners
without reason before noon, and in the afternoon about 250 prisoners
(including 103 Soviet prisoners of war) died from wounds sustained
during torture.
16 Mar 1942 Belzec Concentration Camp was established in occupied
Poland for the purpose of holding and exterminating Jews from Lublin and
Galicia.
17 Mar 1942 In Aktion Reinhard, Jews from Lublin, Poland were sent to
the nearby Belzec concentration camp.
20 Mar 1942 Gas chambers of Block I of Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
Concentration Camp began extermination operations.
21 Mar 1942 Jews from the Lublin ghetto in occupied Poland were
deported to Belzec, Majdanek, and other concentration camps.
22 Mar 1942 Mass exterminations of Jews using Zyklon B gas began at
Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
24 Mar 1942 Deportation of Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration
Camp began.
26 Mar 1942 A transport of 999 female Slovakian Jews from Poprad,
Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they
were the first Slovakians sent by Adolf Eichmann's RSHA IVB4 office.
Coinciding with the arrival of the Slovakian Jews was the arrival of the
first transport of female prisoners from Ravensbrück Concentration Camp
in northern Germany, also containing 999 Jews.
27 Mar 1942 The deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz Concentration
Camp began.
30 Mar 1942 French Jews began arriving at Auschwitz Concentration Camp,
with the first transport originating from Compiegne.
10 Apr 1942 Norwegian Lutheran Bishop Eivind Berggrav, having been
arrested by the German occupation administration in Norway for
resistance on the previous day, was sent to the Bredtvet Concentration Camp.
16 Apr 1942 A large group of Polish artists and actors were arrested by
the Germans in the Artists' Cafe in Krakow, Poland.
25 Apr 1942 The large group of Polish artists and actors arrested in
Krakow, Poland were put on a transport for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
27 Apr 1942 The first of 127 Polish female political prisoners arrived
at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were imprisoned in Block 8.
5 May 1942 German government ruled that deaths of concentration camp
prisoners no longer had to be reported to the next of kin.
10 May 1942 A new concentration camp was opened near the village of
Maly Trostenets near Minsk, Byelorussia.
18 May 1942 The newspaper New York Times published an article in an
inside page that Germans had killed 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states,
100,000 in Poland, and 200,000 in Russia.
27 May 1942 168 prisoners, all Polish artists and actors arrested in
the previous month, were shot at the execution wall in the courtyard of
Block 11 in Auschwitz I in occupied Poland. They were killed in
retaliation of the death of the German Luftwaffe commanding officer in
Krakow, where the victims came from.
31 May 1942 Monowitz labor camp, later to become Auschwitz III, opened
on this date, housing forced laborers charged with building the
Buna-Works for the German chemical firm I. G. Farben.
1 Jun 1942 The Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began operation.
2 Jun 1942 About 50 German Jews from Berlin arrived at Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. They were the first
German Jews to arrive at this camp.
7 Jun 1942 All Jews over the age of six were forced to wear the Star of
David in occupied France.
10 Jun 1942 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, about 50 Polish prisoners
in the penal company attempted to escape while working at a drainage
ditch in Birkenau; it was the first mass escape in the history of the
camp. 9 were able to escape successfully. In response, the SS guards
executed 20 prisoners by firing squad and sent 300 prisoners from the
penal company in the gas chamber.
12 Jun 1942 During the morning roll call at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp, 60 Polish prisoners were called out. They were shot at the Death
Wall in the courtyard of Block 11 in retaliation of clandestine
resistance organizations in Silesia region. The victims were transferred
to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1942 from Sosnowiec, Katowice, and Krakow.
20 Jun 1942 About 1,000 Austrian Jews arrived at Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia; they were the first
Austrian Jews to arrive at this camp.
20 Jun 1942 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz Concentration Camp Kazimierz
Piechowski, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart, and Eugeniusz
Bendera broke into a SS store room and stole uniforms and weapons and
then made their escape from the concentration camp in disguise.
20 Jun 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published the report
from the World Jewish Congress that the Germans had, to date, killed
1,000,000 Jews in "vast slaughterhouse for the Jews" located in Eastern
Europe.
30 Jun 1942 All Jewish schools in Germany were forced to close.
30 Jun 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's Bunker II, the second gas
chamber, became operational.
1 Jul 1942 Jews were massacred in Byelorussian cities of Minsk, Lida,
and Slonim.
2 Jul 1942 A group of Jews from Berlin, Germany were sent to
Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia.
2 Jul 1942 The New York Times reported via the London Daily Telegraph
that over 1,000,000 Jews had already been killed by Nazis.
4 Jul 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland began mass gassings.
7 Jul 1942 Heinrich Himmler authorized sterilization experiments to
take place at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
14 Jul 1942 Some German Jews were deported from Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Minsk, Byelorussia and
other locations in Eastern Europe.
14 Jul 1942 The deportation of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz concentration
camp began.
16 Jul 1942 9,000 French policemen conducted a round-up, gathering
12,887 Parisian Jews born outside of France. 6,000 of them were sent to
Drancy Concentration Camp Camp located just outside the city, while the
other 6,000 were detained at the Vélodrome d'Hiver stadium where they
had to share one water tap and ten toilets.
22 Jul 1942 Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
began.
22 Jul 1942 Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland were deported to Belzec
and Treblinka Concentration Camps; Treblinka had just been opened on
this date.
23 Jul 1942 Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began mass
extermination by gassing; 700,000 would be killed within the following
one year.
28 Jul 1942 A transport of 1,010 Jews (542 men and 468 women) arrived
at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland from Westerbork camp
in the Netherlands; after the selection, 473 men and 315 women were
registered; the remaining 222 were killed in the gas chambers.
28 Jul 1942 Heinrich Himmler received a report from the railroad
industry that, since 22 Jul 1942, 5,000 Jews arrived from Warsaw, Poland
each day for each of Treblinka Concentration Camp and 5,000 Jews arrived
from Przemysl each week for Belzec Concentration Camp.
31 Jul 1942 1,000 Jews from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in
occupied Czechoslovakia were taken to Baranowitsche Concentration Camp
in Poland and gassed in vans.
4 Aug 1942 Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
began.
10 Aug 1942 Jews of Lvov Ghetto in Ukraine started to be deported to
concentration camps; 40,000 were deported within the following 12 days.
14 Aug 1942 7,000 "stateless" Jews were arrested in France by German
authorities.
26 Aug 1942 7,000 Jews were arrested in Vichy France.
9 Sep 1942 Burning of bodies in open-air pits began at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. Additionally, a decision was made to dig up 107,000
already-buried bodies and burn them in pits; this decision was made to
prevent the large number of bodies contaminating ground water.
18 Sep 1942 Monsignor Montini, future Pope Paul VI, sent a letter to
Pope Pius XII, noting that "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening
proportions and forms".
18 Sep 1942 Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied
Czechoslovakia surpassed its maximum capacity; 58,491 prisoners now
resided in the camp.
26 Sep 1942 The Nazi SS organization began to confiscate possessions of
Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps prisoners. Currency, gold,
and jewelry were sent to the SS Headquarters of the Economic
Administration. Watches, clocks, and pens were sent to the troops on the
front lines. Finally, clothing was distributed to German families in need.
30 Sep 1942 A transport containing 610 Jews arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; 37 men
and 118 women were registered into the camp, and the remaining 454 were
gassed.
5 Oct 1942 Heinrich Himmler ordered that all Jews in concentration
camps in Germany were to be transferred to Auschwitz or Majdanek
concentration camps.
10 Oct 1942 From Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, Sigmund Rascher
reported his findings from experiments involving putting concentration
camp prisoners in full flight suits and placing them in freezing
conditions, concluding that the warming of the subjects' heads and necks
were vital for the subjects' survival.
10 Oct 1942 German government increased rations by 10% for all foreign
workers.
18 Oct 1942 The German Ministry of Justice transferred the
responsibility for Jews and citizens of Eastern European countries
within Germany to the Gestapo.
23 Oct 1942 Auschwitz-bound prisoners in the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp in Germany staged a revolt that resulted in failure.
26 Oct 1942 850 Jews were arrested in Norway. Meanwhile, in Nürnberg,
Germany, 95 scientists gathered to review the result of Dr. Sigmund
Rascher's freezing experiments using concentration camp prisoners as
subjects.
28 Oct 1942 The first transport from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
in occupied Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in
occupied Poland.
29 Oct 1942 16,000 Ukrainian Jews of Pinsk Ghetto in Poland (now in
Belarus) were massacred two days after Heinrich Himmler ordered the
liquidation of this ghetto.
30 Oct 1942 All Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp were
brought out for a roll call; 800 were chosen to be sent to the newly
created Buna sub-camp in Monowice to supply workers for the nearly I.G.
Farben chemical plant; a number of prisoners too weak to work were sent
to the gas chambers.
30 Oct 1942 In Belgium, German Gestapo officers rounded up 100 Jewish
children and their carers from a children's home in Brussels and moved
them to a transit camp in Mechelen; protests, including one from the
secretary-general of the Belgian Ministry of Justice, forced the Germans
to return the children to the home.
1 Nov 1942 About 600 Dutch Jews and 977 German Jews from Berlin were
gassed at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
3 Nov 1942 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was caught while
attempting to escape from sector BIb of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau
concentration camp. He was later executed on 24 Jul 1943 in the washroom
of Block 11.
4 Nov 1942 A transport of 954 Jewish men, women, and children from
Westerbork Concentration Camp in occupied Netherlands arrived at
Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 50 women were registered in the camp and
904 people were killed in the gas chambers.
5 Nov 1942 German government ordered that all Jews in concentration
camps within Germany were to be deported to Auschwitz and Majdanek camps.
7 Nov 1942 A transport of 465 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in Poland from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the
Netherlands. During the selection all of them were said to be unable to
work, thus were all sent for one of the two provisional gas chambers.
8 Nov 1942 25 Jewish professional watchmakers were transferred from
Majdanek Concentration Camp to Auschwitz Concentration Camp; they were
later transferred to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where they would
work in a workshop to sort and repair watches stolen from killed Jews
for use by German troops.
14 Nov 1942 Two transports containing a total of 2,500 Jews from
Ciechanow ghettos, Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 633
men and 135 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 1,732 were
killed in gas chambers. On the same day, 1,500 Jews from Bialystok
District 2 in Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 82 men and
379 women were registered into the came, and the remaining 839 were
killed in gas chambers. Finally, the SS doctors of Auschwitz
Concentration Camp sent 110 prisoners from the Auschwitz I hospital to
Birkenau Concentration Camp to be killed in the gas chambers.
18 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from ghettos of Grodno, Byelorussia
arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; 165 men and 65 women
were registered, and about 770 were gassed.
25 Nov 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published an
announcement on page ten by Rabbi Wise about the slaughter of two
million Jews.
25 Nov 1942 The first deportation of Norwegian Jews to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in occupied Poland took place.
26 Nov 1942 German government ordered that all Jewish forced laborers
in the armament industry in Germany were to be deported to Auschwitz and
Majdanek camps.
28 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from Ciechanów ghettos in Poland arrived
at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; after the selection 325 men and 169
women were registered in the camp, and the remaining about 506 people
were gassed.
28 Nov 1942 In the United States, Rabbi Stephen Wise held a press
conference on the Nazi extermination of European Jews.
2 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp on
this date. The first transport from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the
Netherlands arrived with 826 Jews; 77 of them were registered into the
camp, and the remaining 749 were gassed. The second transport from
Grodno ghetto arrived with 1,000 Jews; 178 men and 60 women were
registered into the camp, and the remaining 762 were gassed.
3 Dec 1942 Approximately 300 Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando
who dug up and burned the 107,000 bodies buried in mass graves were
taken from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to the main camp by SS guards. They
were led to the gas chamber in Crematorium I and killed.
5 Dec 1942 The SS authorities organized a general selection among the
prisoners of the female camp BIa in Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration
Camp, which lasted all day, after which 2,000 young, healthy and fit to
work women prisoners were killed in gas chambers.
6 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Of
the 811 Jews from the Netherlands, 16 were registered in the camp and
795 were gassed. Of the about 2,500 Jews from the Mlawa ghetto, 406 were
registered in the camp and around 2,094 were gassed.
10 Dec 1942 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
The first was from the Netherlands with 927 Jews; 39 men and 3 women
were registered, and 885 were gassed. The second was from Berlin,
Germany with 1,060 Jews; 137 men and 25 women were registered, and 898
were gassed. The third was from Malkinia, Poland with about 2,500 Jews;
524 were registered and about 1,976 were gassed.
13 Dec 1942 "Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being
gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered", reported American
journalist Edward R. Murrow. "There are no longer 'concentration camps'
- we must speak now only of 'extermination camps'."
18 Dec 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published a front
page story on the Nazi extermination of European Jews.
28 Dec 1942 Concentration camp doctors at Birkenau began sterilization
experiments on female prisoners.
29 Dec 1942 In the afternoon, prisoners Otto Küsel, Jan Baras,
Mieczyslaw Januszewski, and Dr. Boleslaw Kuczbara escaped from Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. Otto Küsel, a German Jew with horse cart driving
responsibilities, loaded up four cabinets for transport with the other
three hidden inside, reaching an open field in the production area
without being checked by SS guards due to the appearance of his usual
duty. Mieczyslaw Januszewski came out, wearing a SS uniform and wielding
a rifle, and sat next to Küsel. They left the camp after Januszewski
produced a false SS identification. They made contact shortly after with
the resistance group Polish Home Army.
6 Jan 1943 Jews in Opoczno, Poland were told that those with family in
Palestine would be deported there. 500 Jews came out from hiding to
register and were sent to Treblinka Concentration Camp where they were
gassed.
9 Jan 1943 In the early afternoon, Czech prisoner Georg Zahradka or
Zacharatka escaped from Auschwitz I concentration camp, but was captured
by midnight near watchtower 26. He was executed on 14 Jan 1943.
11 Jan 1943 A transport of 750 Dutch Jews departed from Westerbork
Concentration Camp in the Netherlands for Sobibór Concentration Camp in
Poland.
13 Jan 1943 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp,
each containing 1,210 German Jews from Berlin (1,083 of them were sent
directly to the gas chambers), 750 Dutch Jews (88 men and 101 women were
registered, and the remaining 561 were gassed), and 2,000 Jews of
Zambrów ghetto in Poland (148 men and 50 women were registered, and the
remaining 1,802 were gassed).
14 Jan 1943 Georg Zahradka was executed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp
for attempting to escape during the night of 9 Jan 1943.
20 Jan 1943 German Inspector of Concentration Camps advised camp
commandants to reduce rate of death for camp prisoners; however, camp
doctors were given orders to kill the sick and the debilitated.
20 Jan 1943 Transports of Jews from Theresienstadt Ghetto in occupied
Czechoslovakia departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied
Poland; several more transports departed from Theresienstadt in the
following 6 days.
24 Jan 1943 A transport from a psychiatric hospital at Apeldoornse Bosh
with 921 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. After the
selection, 16 men and 60 women were registered; the remaining were sent
to the gas chambers.
29 Jan 1943 German authorities ordered Roma and Sinti people across
German-occupied Europe to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
29 Jan 1943 Kurt Prüfer of German engineering firm J. A. Topf und Söhne
visited the Central Construction Office of Auschwitz Concentration Camp
in Poland, inspecting the Crematoria II, III, IV, and V construction
progress; he estimated the launch of Crematorium II to be around 15 Feb,
Crematorium III around 17 Apr, Crematorium IV around 28 Feb, and
Crematorium V's completion date depended largely on weather.
31 Jan 1943 A transport with 2,834 Polish Jews from Pruzany arrived in
Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it included 230 children under four and
520 children between four and ten. 313 men and 180 women were registered
in the camp; the remaining 2,341, including all 750 children, were gassed.
1 Feb 1943 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland, SS
personnel selected 20 Jewish prisoners who were already working at the
crematorium in Auschwitz I and readied them for work in the
soon-to-be-ready new crematoriums in Birkenau.
4 Feb 1943 A transport of 890 Jews from Westerbork Concentration Camp
in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 48
of the 312 males and 52 of the females were registered; the remaining
790 were sent to the gas chambers.
6 Feb 1943 All female prisoners at Auschwitz Concentration Camp were
gathered for a general roll call at 0330 hours then marched outside the
camp. They were kept outdoors until 1700 hours, then were ordered to run
back to the camp, prodded by swinging clubs. About 1,000 women died
during this forced march. Those who were not able to keep up but
survived were rounded up and sent to block 25 in the BIa sector of the
camp, from which location they would later be transported to the gas
chambers.
10 Feb 1943 The German Central Construction Office (Bauleitung)
reported that it could not meet the deadline for the construction of
Crematorium II at Auschwitz Concentration Camp due to the fact that, of
the 500 masons requested, only 30 were available.
11 Feb 1943 A transport from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the
Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 476
men and 708 women; 113 men and 66 women were registered, and the
remaining 1,005 were killed in the gas chambers.
12 Feb 1943 German engineering firm J. A. Topf und Söhne sent a letter
to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, confirming that it had
received the order to build Crematoriums II and III at the camp.
12 Feb 1943 Jews from the Bialystok ghetto in Poland began to be
deported to Treblinka Concentration Camp.
20 Feb 1943 A special section was established at the Hinzert
Concentration Camp for Polish civilian workers who fraternized with
German women.
22 Feb 1943 Bulgaria agreed to a German demand to deport 11,000 Jews
from 23 communities in Thrace and Macedonia, occupied areas of
Yugoslavia and Greece. They were sent to Treblinka Concentration Camp
where many of them died subsequently.
26 Feb 1943 The first transport of Roma and Sinti arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland; they were assigned to the BIIe sector at
Auschwitz II-Birkenau and housed in what was called the "Gypsy camp"
(Zigeunerlager); this sector would eventually grow to house 23,000 Sinti
and Roma people; 20,000 of them would not survive the Holocaust.
26 Feb 1943 The German government issued the order that Eastern
European workers who were originally sent to concentration camps for a
temporary basis were now to be held at the camps indefinitely.
27 Feb 1943 Jews in Berlin, Germany who were previously allowed to
remain there due to their positions in the armaments industry were
deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Meanwhile, the Rosenstrasse
protest began in Berlin by women who had married Jewish men.
28 Feb 1943 A mistake in record-keeping at Auschwitz Concentration Camp
caused registration information of the women's camp in Birkenau to be in
a state of confusion. All female prisoners of Birkenau camp were
gathered for a prolonged roll call which lasted the entire day to
re-confirm camp records; at the same time, a selection also took place
among the women, which condemned some of them to the gas chambers.
3 Mar 1943 The 32nd transport from Berlin, Germany arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland in two trains, totaling 1,758 German Jews
and 158 Norwegian Jews. 535 men and 145 women were registered into the
camp from the first train, and 50 and 164 were registered from the
second train. The remaining 1,022 were killed in gas chambers.
4 Mar 1943 The Bulgarian government, in an attempt to protect Bulgarian
Jews, fulfilled German pressure by deporting about 4,000 Greek Jews from
the occupied territory of Thrace. These Greek Jews were eventually sent
to concentration camps in Poland.
5 Mar 1943 During a test run of Crematorium II at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
it took 40 minutes to cremate 45 bodies. An observing commission, which
included engineers from the firm J. A. Topf and Sons and SS officers,
complained that the amount of time it took was too long. They instructed
the prisoners who operated the crematorium to keep the generators
running for several days to increase the temperature.
7 Mar 1943 4,500 Croatian Jews were arrested; they would be deported to
Auschwitz between 7 and 13 Mar 1943.
7 Mar 1943 Roma and Sinti people from occupied Poland and Soviet Union
began arriving at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
9 Mar 1943 40,000 people attended an event at Madison Square Garden,
New York, New York, United States organized by Peter Bergson to raise
awareness of the Nazi extermination of European Jews.
10 Mar 1943 The German Gestapo organization sent 11 Polish men and 11
Polish women from Bielsko, Poland to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
11 Mar 1943 German RSHA organization ordered that all Jews in the
criminal rehabilitation system were to be sent to Auschwitz or Majdanek
concentration camps, where they would remain indefinitely, after they
served their sentences. Meanwhile, Bulgarian troops arrested 7,100
Macedonian Jews and deported them to the new Skopje Concentration Camp
in Yugoslavia.
12 Mar 1943 German occupation authorities in the Netherlands ordered
Jews residing in eight of the country's eleven provinces to be deported
to the Vught (Hertogenbosch) Concentration Camp.
12 Mar 1943 The company Ostindustrie GmbH established by the German SS
organization; it was to act as the holding company for Jewish businesses
in Lublin, Poland taken over by the SS.
15 Mar 1943 Greek Jews from Salonika and Thrace were deported to
concentration camps.
22 Mar 1943 Crematorium 4 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in Poland.
23 Mar 1943 A group of Greek Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp in Poland.
30 Mar 1943 A transport of 2,501 Jews from Thessaloniki, Greece arrived
at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 312 men and 141 women were
registered, while the remaining 2,048 were gassed.
31 Mar 1943 Crematorium 2 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in occupied Poland.
4 Apr 1943 The German SS Central Construction Office reported to
Auschwitz Concentration Camp that Crematorium V had been completed in
Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and its administration was now turned over to the
camp administration. According to the firm that built the crematorium,
J. A. Topf und Söhne, it had the capacity to cremate 768 bodies each day.
9 Apr 1943 The Chelmno Concentration Camp in Reichsgau Wartheland,
Germany (occupied Poland) temporarily ceased its extermination operations.
9 Apr 1943 The German government re-designated Majdanek from a labor
camp to a concentration camp.
11 Apr 1943 SS doctors at concentration camps were given orders to
select prisoners to be sent to Hartheim Castle in Austria to be euthanized.
18 Apr 1943 A transport of 2501 Jews from the ghetto in Thessaloniki,
Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Only 605 were
registered into the camp; the remaining 1,896 were sent to the gas chambers.
22 Apr 1943 A transport of Jews from Westerbork Concentration Camp
arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Sudetenland in southern
Germany (occupied Czechoslovakia).
27 Apr 1943 The German Inspector of Concentration Camps ordered that
only the mentally ill prisoners could be gassed via the Aktion T-4
Euthaniasia Program.
30 Apr 1943 The construction for the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
in northwestern Germany began.
8 May 1943 German government issued the order that deaths of Eastern
European workers in the concentration camps only need to be reported to
labor offices.
20 May 1943 Esterwegen Concentration Camp established a special camp
named "Süd" (South) to hold prisoners transferred under the Nacht und
Nebel program.
20 May 1943 The women's camp in Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland
reported that it had 20,635 female prisoners (9,337 with working
assignments, 4,510 without working assignments, and 6,788 unable to work).
24 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Josef Mengele arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. He was soon to begin experiments on prisoners.
25 May 1943 507 men and 528 women of the Gypsy camp in Birkenau of the
Auschwitz Concentration Camp system, most of whom were from Poland and
Austria, were gassed. At least several hundred of them were sick, many
of whom with typhus, thus giving the camp authorities to write off their
deaths as natural.
26 May 1943 The German government issued the order to stop assigning
concentration camp victims sequantial identification numbers in order to
hide the true number of deaths.
30 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele became the doctor for the
Gypsy Family Camp (Sector BIIe) of Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in
occupied Poland.
12 Jun 1943 Germans liquidated the Jewish Ghetto in Berezhany in
western Ukraine. 1,180 Jews were led to the city's old Jewish graveyard
and killed.
22 Jun 1943 Stutthof Concentration Camp conducted its first gassing,
killing many Polish and and Byelorussian prisoners.
23 Jun 1943 All Jewish ghettos in the Galicia region of Poland and
Ukraine were liquidated; 430,329 Jews were deported from this region.
25 Jun 1943 Crematorium III began operation at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp. The camp now had the capacity of cremating 4,756 bodies per day.
25 Jun 1943 Jews in the ghetto of Czestochowa, Poland revolted; German
authorities destroyed the ghetto in response.
25 Jun 1943 The German Foreign Ministry representative in the
Netherlands reported that 102,000 of the 140,000 Dutch Jews had been
deported.
14 Jul 1943 At Krasnodar in southern Russia, the Soviets began a trial
of 11 Germans accused of the murder of 7,000 civilians by gas vans,
shootings, and hangings.
19 Jul 1943 12 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz I camp were executed by
hanging in front of the kitchen during roll call for helping three
fellow prisoners escape. The men were Stanislaw Stawinski (No. 6569),
Czeslaw Marcisz (No. 26891), Janusz Skrzetuski-Pogonowski (No. 253),
Edmund Sikorski (No. 25419), Jerzy Wozniak (No. 35650), Józef Wojtyga
(No. 24740), Zbigniew Foltanski (No. 41664), Boguslaw Ohrt (No. 367),
Leon Rajzer (No. 399), Tadeusz Rapacz (No. 36043), Józef Gancarz (No.
24538), and Mieczyslaw Kulikowski (No. 25404).
20 Jul 1943 German government reports dated this date indicated that,
since 2 Mar 1943, there had been 20 transports of Jews from the
Netherlands to Sobibór Concentration Camp, totaling over 34,000 persons;
only 19 of these deportees survived the Holocaust.
24 Jul 1943 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was executed in
the washroom of Block 11 at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
2 Aug 1943 200 Jews revolted in Treblinka concentration camp in Poland,
burning down several buildings, and attempted to escape; camp guards
found and killed most of them.
2 Aug 1943 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's special camp for Roma people
was liquidated; 2,897 prisoners were gassed.
6 Aug 1943 German SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier gave his
subordinates time off from 1300 hours on 7 Aug 1945 to end of the day of
8 Aug 1945 to recognize the work his men accomplished during the
liquidation of the Jewish ghettos in Bedzin and Sosnowiec in the Silesia
region of Germany (occupied Poland).
10 Aug 1943 A transport of about 3,000 arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp from the liquidated ghetto in Sosnowiec, Poland. 110
men and 195 were registered into the camp; the remainder were killed in
the gas chambers. On the same day, Auschwitz received 754 sewing
machines from the liquidated ghetto of Bedzin, Poland.
11 Aug 1943 Jews from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied
Czechoslovakia began to be transported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
in occupied Poland.
21 Aug 1943 The authorities at the Birkenau women's camp at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland selected 498 Jewish women considered unable
to work for the gas chamber; 438 of them were Greeks.
24 Aug 1943 1,260 Polish Jewish children from the liquidated Bialystok
ghetto in Poland arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in
occupied Czechoslovakia.
9 Sep 1943 5,006 Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia
arrived at the newly created Familienlager-Theresienstadt family camp in
sector BIIb of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland.
11 Sep 1943 German authorities raided Jews in Nice, France.
11 Sep 1943 Jewish ghettos in Byelorussian cities of Minsk and Lida
were liquidated over the next 3 days.
23 Sep 1943 The Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania was liquidated.
25 Sep 1943 All Jewish ghettos in Byelorussia were liquidated.
27 Sep 1943 One of the Nazi officials in Rome demanded that the Jewish
community pay one hundred pounds of gold within thirty-six hours or
three hundred Jews would be taken prisoner. The Vatican would open its
treasury to help the Jews reach the required amount.
1 Oct 1943 220 Danish Jews were arrested by the Gestapo.
2 Oct 1943 Orders were given by the German government to deport Danish
Jews to concentration camps.
5 Oct 1943 1,196 Polish Jewish children originally from the liquidated
Bialystok ghetto in Poland were transferred from Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in occupied Poland.
14 Oct 1943 Prisoners of Sobibór Concentration Camp in Poland destroyed
extermination facilities and escaped en masse; 300 disappeared into the
woods and 50 joined partisan units.
16 Oct 1943 More than 1,000 Italian Jews from Rome were sent to
Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
18 Oct 1943 Italian Jews from Rome began to be deported to
concentration camps.
21 Oct 1943 1,007 Jews from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands
arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. There were 87
children, 407 men and women under the age of 50 and 207 older people.
After the selection 347 men and 170 women were registered. The other 409
were killed in the gas chambers.
22 Oct 1943 Block 11 of Auschwitz I concentration camp held a trial
that sentenced 76 men and 19 women to death; they had been transferred
from the prison in Myslowitz. The trial was presided by the new head of
the Kattowitz Gestapo, SS-Obersturbanfuehrer Johannes Thümmler, who was
never punished after the war and passed away in old age in May 2002.
23 Oct 1943 A transport of prisoners from Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camp arrived at Gas Chamber II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. In the
undressing room, one of the Jewish women seized SS man Josef
Schillinger's pistol and shot Schillinger and another guard, Wilhelm
Emmerich. Other prisoners joined in to attack other guards, but the SS
eventually took control of the situation. Schillinger died on the way to
the hospital; Emmerich survived the wound, but became permanently disabled.
26 Oct 1943 The human collection at the University of Strasbourg in
Strasbourg, Alsace, France was destroyed, as reported by the scientists
who performed research on them for the Nazi regime. In actuality, there
was not enough time to destroy the entire collection, and a few cadavers
were hidden, to be found later.
2 Nov 1943 1,870 Jews from labor camp in Szopienice, Katowice, Poland
arrived at Auschwitz. 463 men and 28 women were registered into the
camp; the rest were sent to the gas chambers.
3 Nov 1943 A transport of 1,203 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp from a slave camp from Szopienice in southern Poland. 284 men and
23 women were registered into the camp; the remaining 896 were sent to a
gas chamber.
3 Nov 1943 During the German Aktion Erntefest, Jewish prisoners were
beginning to be massacred at Trawniki, Poniatowa, and Majdanek
Concentration Camps; when the aktion was completed on the following day,
42,000 would be dead.
3 Nov 1943 Jewish ghettos at Riga, Latvia were liquidated.
11 Nov 1943 Liebehenschel became the new commandant of Auschwitz
Concentration Camp as his predecessor, Höss, was promoted to become the
chief inspector of concentration camps. A report dated on this date
noted that the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz
II-Birkenau Concentration Camps and all subcamps was 54,673 men and
33,179 women, for the total of 87,852 prisoners.
19 Nov 1943 En route to a gas chamber at Auschwitz II in Poland, Bina
Braun and Rosa Theberger attempted to escape but was caught and shot,
and the rest were gassed. The list of 394 prisoners killed on this day
was stolen and smuggled to the resistance leader in Auschwitz I camp,
who sent the list on to Krakow, Poland on 21 Nov and then to London,
England, United Kingdom.
20 Nov 1943 Jews in northern Italy were ordered to be sent to
concentration camps.
1 Dec 1943 Arthur Liebehenschel became the second commandant of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
2 Dec 1943 The first transport of Jews from Vienna arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp.
5 Dec 1943 German forces began a week-long operation to deport Jews
from Bialystok, Poland. While about 10,000 were deported, unknown
thousands of Jews were able to hide. 700 were killed while resisting.
Most of those deported were sent to Treblinka, Majdanek, or Auschwitz
Concentration Camps.
8 Dec 1943 A transport of 55 Berlin Jews arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland. After the selection, 14 were registered
and 31 were gassed.
16 Dec 1943 The chief surgeon at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland
reported that 106 castration operations had been performed on prisoners.
20 Dec 1943 The Rapportführer of the quarantine camp at Auschwitz
II-Birkenau Concentration camp (Sector BIIa) gave an order to flog the
whole first row of prisoners for too little springy posture at the roll
call, which took place during the cold wind and falling snow. Four
prisoners were then transferred to the camp hospital due to the flogging.
25 Dec 1943 By this date in 1943, there were a total of 86,919
prisoners in the Auschwitz camp system in occupied Poland, 56,595 of
whom were men and 30,324 were women.
31 Dec 1943 As of this date, Auschwitz Concentration Camp had a
population of 85,298 prisoners (55,785 men and 29,513 women). In the
month of Dec 1943, 5,748 male and 8,931 female registered prisoners died
at Auschwitz; these numbers did not include those killed in gas chambers
immediately after arriving without being registered.
4 Jan 1944 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, SS Doctor Eduard Wirths
notified fellow medical officers at Auschwitz III-Monowitz that, as of
this date, corpses of deceased prisoners should be identified and then
sent directly to the crematoria, bypassing the previous procedure of
sending the corpses to the morgue at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz
II-Birkenau first. Death reports, however, must still be filed at the
orderly room of prisoners' hospital in Auschwitz I by noon time of the
same day that the corpses were sent to the crematoria.
10 Jan 1944 A transport of 259 Jews from Stutthof Concentration Camp
departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
10 Jan 1944 French police arrested 228 Jews in and near Bordeaux and
rounded them up at the Bordeaux synagogue.
11 Jan 1944 Several hundred Spanish Jews arrested in Greece and
imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp were returned to Spain.
12 Jan 1944 1,000 Jews from Stutthof Concentration Camp arrived at
Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 120 men and 134 women were registered into
the camp while 746 were gassed upon arrival.
29 Jan 1944 A transport of 245 prisoners sent by the Bialystok Gestapo
arrived at Stutthof concentration camp.
1 Feb 1944 A new satellite camp of Auschwitz III (Monowitz), located at
the Guenthergrube in Ledziny, Poland opened. This new satellite camp
would house 300 prisoners for coal mining for the German industrial firm
I. G. Farben.
2 Feb 1944 A transport from Trieste, Italy arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. Most of the prisoners were sent to the gas chambers
upon arrival.
3 Feb 1944 The Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France sent its 67th
transport for Auschwitz Concentration Camp with more than 1,000 Jews.
6 Feb 1944 A transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France
arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 999 of the 1,214 Jews were sent
to the gas chambers upon arrival; only 166 men and 49 women were
registered into the camp.
9 Feb 1944 The German Foreign Ministry in the Hague reported back to
Berlin that to date 108,000 Jews had been deported from the Netherlands.
The Dutch population considered German methods brutal, and church
circles were actively promoting disapproval for the deportations.
15 Feb 1944 1,500 prisoners arrived at Mauthausen Concentration Camp in
Austria from Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
19 Feb 1944 141 Libyan Jews held at the Fossoli transit camp near
Modena, Italy were deported to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany.
22 Feb 1944 Auschwitz III commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz
ordered that night shift workers not be assigned to do any day shift
work, the prisoners be given seven to eight hours of rest per day, and
roll call be limited to five to ten minutes; his motivations were to
maintain a high level of productivity from the forced laborers in his
camp. On this date a total of 73,669 prisoners were in the Auschwitz
Concentration Camp; Auschwitz I housed 17,177 male prisoners, Auschwitz
II housed 18,378 male and 24,637 female prisoners, and Auschwitz III
housed 13,477 male prisoners.
22 Feb 1944 In Italy, 650 Italian Jews were embarked onto a train at
the Fossoli transit camp near Carpi, Modena for Auschwitz; many of them
would be sent to the gas chambers upon arrival on 26 Feb 1944.
23 Feb 1944 39 Polish boys between the age of 13 to 17 originally from
the Zamosc region were brought from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to block 20 at
Auschwitz I. They were told that they would be trained to be nurses, but
that evening they were killed with phenol heart injections given by
SS-Unterscharführer Scherpe.
26 Feb 1944 650 Italian Jews from Fossoli transit camp near Carpi,
Modena and 84 Soviet prisoners of war from the Lamsdorf (Lambinowice,
Poland) POW camp arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Of
the Italian Jews, 95 men and 29 women were registered into the camp; the
remaining 526 were sent to the gas chambers.
2 Mar 1944 421 Czech prisoners were transferred from Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.
3 Mar 1944 A transport of 1,390 prisoners, mostly Latvians and
Russians, was sent from Stutthof Concentration Camp to Mauthausen
Concentration Camp.
5 Mar 1944 732 Jews from the Westerbork transit camp arrived at
Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. 477 of them were sent to the gas
chambers without being registered into the camp.
5 Mar 1944 Auschwitz-Birkenau camp officials decided to gas the Czech
Jews of Theresienstadt camp (sector BIIb). They were given postcards
post-dated 25-27 Mar 1944 with pre-printed message "we are healthy and
fine" and were told to sign them. These prisoners were gassed on 8 Mar
1944 and the postcards were mailed after 25 Mar.
7 Mar 1944 38 Jews hiding at 84 Grojecka Street, Warsaw, Poland were
arrested. The 6 Polish non-Jews who provided them food and shelter were
also arrested. Historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, among those arrested, was
executed within the next few days.
7 Mar 1944 Germans arrested Jewish hospices at Turin, Italy and sent
them to the Fossoli transit camp. Many of them would be sent to
Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland later in the month.
7 Mar 1944 The 69th transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris,
France departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 1,501
prisoners. It would arrive at Auschwitz on 10 Mar and 1,311 of them
would be gassed upon arrival.
8 Mar 1944 3,791 Czech Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in
occupied Poland. The men were killed in Crematorium III and the women
and children in Crematorium II.
9 Mar 1944 Gusen II, a satellite of Mauthausen Concentration Camp,
opened at Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Austria. Prisoners of Gusen II
were used to build underground aircraft and weapons factories.
10 Mar 1944 1,501 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from
Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris. 110 men and 80 women were registered
into the camp, while the remaining 1,311 were sent to the gas chambers.
11 Mar 1944 About 300 Jewish women and children of Split, Yugoslavia
were rounded up, sent to Jasenovac Concentration Camp, and killed.
13 Mar 1944 The Jewish ghetto of Kraków, Poland was closed down; as its
residents were deported to the newly built Plaszów labor camp, 2,000
died en route.
18 Mar 1944 At 1100 hours, Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner Rudolf
Friemel married forced laborer Margarita Ferrer at the camp's Registry
Office. It was the only case where a prisoner was allowed to marry in
the camp. They had met in Spain when Rudolf Friemel, an Austrian, fought
as a volunteer for the Spanish Republicans in the civil war. Friemel was
executed by hanging on 30 Dec 1944 for a failed attempt to escape
Auschwitz. Ferrer and their child survived the war.
25 Mar 1944 184 Jews who had been recently arrested from their hiding
places in the Hague in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp.
25 Mar 1944 The Hungarian Council of Ministers approved several
anti-Semitic policies, including a law requiring Jews to wear the yellow
Star of David to be effective on 5 Apr 1944.
28 Mar 1944 About 300 patients from two hospitals and one psychiatric
institution in Trieste, Italy were deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
4 Apr 1944 The Allies conducted the first reconnaissance mission over
Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On the same day, a transport from two
hospitals and one psychiatric institution in Trieste, Italy arrived at
Auschwitz; 62 of the about 300 patients died en route, while another 103
were gassed upon arrival.
5 Apr 1944 Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and
made it safely to Czechoslovakia; he warned the Elders of the Council at
Theresienstadt about the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz.
5 Apr 1944 The SS Economic and Administrative Office submitted a report
to the Supreme Command of the German SS organization noting the
existence of 20 concentration camps with 165 connected labor camps. In
Hungary, Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David.
7 Apr 1944 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from
Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; they would
cross the border to Slovakia three days later.
10 Apr 1944 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who had escaped from
Auschwitz Concentration Camp three days prior, arrived in Slovakia. They
would later revealing information about the camp to outside world via
the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia.
13 Apr 1944 Drancy Concentration Camp in France dispatched its 71st
convoy with 1,500 Jews for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
14 Apr 1944 In Poland, the first Allied aerial photographs were taken
of Auschwitz I camp, the town of Auschwitz (known as Oswiecim in
Polish), the I. G. Farben factories, and the Auschwitz III camp complex
(also known as Monowitz); this came 10 days after the first Allied
reconnaissance flight over the camp.
14 Apr 1944 The first transports of Greek Jews to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp departed from Athens, Greece. On the same date, a
transport of 500 prisoners was sent from Stutthof Concentration Camp to
Neuengamme Concentration Camp. In France, mass arrests of Jews were
ordered; to provide incentive for civilians to aid this effort, payments
were offered to those who led authorities to Jews in hiding.
16 Apr 1944 A transport of 1,500 Jews from Drancy Concentration Camp
outside of Paris arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it was the
71st transport from Drancy to Auschwitz. 165 men and 223 women were
registered into the camp, while the remaining 1,112 were gassed.
25 Apr 1944 The Emsland concentration camps in Germany established the
Kommandos Nord (Department North), which began to construct
concentration camps in Norway north of the Arctic Circle; 1,404
prisoners were transferred there when completed.
2 May 1944 Two transports arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp
with 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary and 2,000 from Topolya,
Yugoslavia. 1,102 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 2,698
were sent to the gas chambers.
4 May 1944 A new German plan called for the deportation of 3,000
Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp daily, starting on 15 May
1944. A meeting was held on this date in Vienna between German SS
officials, Hungarian officials, and railroad officials to determine the
logistics of such an operation.
11 May 1944 German SS Sturmbannführer Richard Baer was appointed the
commandant of Auschwitz I after his predecessor Liebehenschel was
transferred to Majdanek Concentration Camp.
12 May 1944 39 German Sinti children, 20 boys and 19 girls, arrived at
Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were separated from their parents as
a part of Eva Justin's dissertation "The fate of Gypsy children and
their offspring raised in alien environments". She became a professor at
Berlin University in 1943 and the paper was published in 1944.
15 May 1944 Hungarian Jews began to be deported to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
15 May 1944 Over the following three days, about 7,500 prisoners of the
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia were
transferred to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; part
of the reason was to relieve Theresienstadt's overcrowded condition in
preparation of a visit by the International Red Cross and the Danish Red
Cross in the following month.
21 May 1944 Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in
Poland with 12,438 Hungarian Jews (3,013 from Viseu de Sus (Felsövisó),
3,274 from Nyiregyháza, 3,290 from Sátoraljaújhely, and 2,861 from
Mukacevo (Munkács)) and 2,000 Jews from Yugoslavia. 1,102 were
registered into the camp; 2,698 were sent to the gas chambers.
23 May 1944 Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in
Poland with 12,674 Hungarian Jews (3,023 from Viseu de Sus (Felsovisó),
3,272 from Nyiregyháza, 3,269 from Mukacevo (Munkács), and 3,110 from
Oradea (Nagyvárad)). 5 women were registered into the camp; 12,669 were
sent to the gas chambers.
24 May 1944 A transport of 859 prisoners from the Pawiak prison in
Warsaw, Poland arrived at Stutthof Concentration Camp.
3 Jun 1944 Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp's electric fence, which had
previously been turned off during the daylight hours to save energy, was
now on throughout the entire day in response to the numerous escape
attempts by Hungarian Jews. On the same day, four transports brought
11,569 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz (2,937 from Nagyszölös (Vinogradov),
2,499 from Kassa Kosice, 2,972 from Nagyvárad (Oradea), and 3,161 from
Szilágysomló (Simleu Silvaniei)).
7 Jun 1944 The administration of the crematoriums in Auschwitz
II-Birkenau concentration camp ordered four sieves from the
manufacturing firm Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) to sift through human
ashes. The sieves were to be equipped with an iron frame and the
openings of the sieve screens were to be 10 millimeters in size.
20 Jun 1944 Jakob Edelstein, the former senior Jewish elder
("Judenaeltester") of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, and his
family were shot in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
22 Jun 1944 Prisoners of the Alderney Concentration Camp in the Channel
Islands were deported to Sollstedt in Germany. They would arrive in Sep
1944, where they would be transferred to Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
23 Jun 1944 A major deportation began at the Jewish ghetto at Lodz,
Poland; through 14 Jul 1944, 7,196 would be sent to Chelmno
Concentration Camp where they would be killed.
23 Jun 1944 In the Unite States, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of
the House of Representatives of the US Congress drafted a resolution
that supported the War Refugee Board and promised retribution against
those responsible for atrocities in occupied Europe (Hungary in particular).
23 Jun 1944 Two representatives (one Danish and one Swiss) of the
International Red Cross and one representative of the Danish Red Cross
visited Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia for
six hours; the prisoners gave them positive reports about the living
conditions as they were instructed to do by the camp administration.
24 Jun 1944 Prisoners Edward Galinski and Mala Zimetbaum escaped from
Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland but they would be
re-captured in Jul 1944.
26 Jun 1944 A transport of 3,119 Jews from Szeged, Hungary crossed into
Poland at Kosice, Czechoslovakia. The train was destined for Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
26 Jun 1944 The crematoria in Auschwitz-II Birkenau in occupied Poland
received four sieves for sifting bones out of human ashes. Up above,
Allied aircraft took photographs of the Auschwitz camps complex at the
altitude of about 30,000 feet (about 10,000 meters).
29 Jun 1944 A transport of 2,502 Hungarian Jews from Auschwitz
Concentration Camp arrived at Stutthof Concentration Camp.
29 Jun 1944 Out of about 1,100 prisoners at Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camp in Germany with valid entry certificates for Palestine, 221 Jews
were allowed to go; they would arrive in Haifa at 1700 hours on 10 Jul.
30 Jun 1944 A transport of 2,044 Jews from Athens and Corfu Island in
Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; 455
men and 175 women were registered into the camp while the remainder were
gassed. On the same day, another transport of 1,000 Jews from the
Fossoli di Carpi transit camp in Italy also arrived; 180 men and 51
women were registered while the remainder were gassed.
6 Jul 1944 Chaim Weizmann, the future Israeli president, messaged
British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, requesting the rail lines
leading to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland to be bombed.
6 Jul 1944 Prisoners Edward Galinski and Mala Zimetbaum, escaped from
Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland in Jun 1944, were
re-captured. They would later be executed for this attempt.
7 Jul 1944 Miklós Horthy suspended the deportation of Hungarian Jews to
concentration camps.
7 Jul 1944 Six trains carrying 14,846 Hungarian Jews (3,077 from
Sopron, 2,793 from Pápa, 1,072 from Paks, 3,549 from Monor, 3,151 from
Óbuda, and 2,204 from Sárvár) acrossed into occupied Poland, destined
for the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
9 Jul 1944 Five trains carrying 14,212 Hungarian Jews (3,065 from
Monor, 3,072 from Óbuda, 3,072 from Budakalász, 3,079 from Monor, and
1,924 from Békesmegyer) acrossed the border into occupied Poland,
destined for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
10 Jul 1944 221 former prisoners of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
and 61 former internees in Vittel, France who had been given permission
by Germany to go to Palestine arrived in Haifa at 1700 hours.
18 Jul 1944 German troops round up the 2,000 Jews at Rhodes and Kos in
Greece; most of them would soon be deported to the Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Poland.
24 Jul 1944 Majdanek Concentration Camp became the first concentration
camp to be liberated by Soviet troops (and the first to be liberated
overall).
2 Aug 1944 Zigeunernacht ("Gypsy Night"): 4,000 Roma were killed and
cremated at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
5 Aug 1944 The neutral Turkish ship, Mefkure, sailing from Romania to
Istanbul, Turkey with 325 passengers, mainly Jews fleeing from Romania,
Poland and Hungary, was torpedoed, shelled and sunk by an unidentified
submarine, believed to be the Soviet submarine SC-215. The survivors
were machine gunned in the water and only 11 escape. The dead include 37
children.
6 Aug 1944 Lodz, the last Jewish ghetto in Poland, was liquidated; its
60,000 residences were sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 27,000
prisoners of various concentration camps east of the Vistula River in
Poland were transferred to camps to the west. The evacuation of
Kaiserwald Concentration Camp outside of Riga, Latvia began.
12 Aug 1944 The first transport of civilians arrested in Warsaw, Poland
after the start of Warsaw Uprising reached Auschwitz II-Birkenau
concentration camp via Pruszków transit camp. 1,984 males and over 3,800
females were in this transport.
23 Aug 1944 In Paris, France, the Drancy Concentration Camp, a transit
camp for French Jews used during German occupation, was liberated by
Allied troops.
25 Aug 1944 Allied reconnaissance aircraft flew over Auschwitz
Concentration Camp and took photographs of the complex.
29 Aug 1944 As of this date, at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the
number of prisoners in the Sonderkommando, the work group created by the
Germans to operate the gas chambers and crematoria, was 874.
1 Sep 1944 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden responded to Chaim
Weizmann's 6 Jul 1944 request, rejecting Weizmann's request to bomb rail
lines leading to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
15 Sep 1944 Prisoners Edward Galinski and Mala Zimetbaum were executed
at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland for their attempted
escape from Auschwitz II–Birkenau in Jun 1944.
18 Sep 1944 A transport with 2,500 Jews arrived at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp from the Lodz ghetto in occupied Poland; about 80% of
this transport were children between 13 and 16 years of age. 150 were
registered into the camp, the remaining were all killed in the gas chambers.
18 Sep 1944 Nazi German SS doctors conducted a selection in the
infirmaries of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland. 330 men
and 65 boys, all Jews, were selected and sent to the gas chambers.
23 Sep 1944 Jewish prisoners of concentration camp in Kluga, Estonia
were massacred.
28 Sep 1944 Beginning on this date and through the following month,
about 18,402 prisoners from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in
occupied Czechoslovakia were transferred to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
in occupied Poland.
7 Oct 1944 Jewish prisoners of the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz
II-Birkenau Concentration Camp organized a large revolt and escape.
Crematorium IV was set on fire, while SS guards came under attack.
During the havoc, some of the prisoners were successful in cutting
through the perimeter fencing and got outside, but the SS guard
responded and successfully rounded up all escapees and killed them all.
After the revolt was put down in the camp, about 250 prisoners,
including leader Zalmen Gradowski and Józef Deresinski, were dead. Three
SS men were also killed; ten were wounded. Four Jewish women who had
stolen the explosives from their workplace at the Union-Werke armaments
factory, which were used during this revolt, were later hanged.
13 Oct 1944 Salaspils Concentration Camp near Riga, Latvia ceased
operations.
23 Oct 1944 Hungarian and German soldiers rounded up Jews in the city
of Budapest, Hungary.
25 Oct 1944 Heinrich Himmler issued orders on combating youth gangs
such as Edelweiss Pirates, which had been known to harbor deserters,
escaped prisoners of war, and escaped concentration camp prisoners.
31 Oct 1944 14,000 Jews were transported from Slovakia to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
1 Nov 1944 In Germany, Buchenwald Concentration Camp's satellite camp
Dora became an independent camp called Mittelbau-Dora; it was to become
an underground aircraft and V-weapon production site.
1 Nov 1944 The gas chamber at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland
was used for the last time, killing 206 Jews.
8 Nov 1944 25,000 Jews were forced to walk over 100 miles in rain and
snow from Budapest, Hungary to the Austrian border, followed by a second
forced march of 50,000 persons, ending at Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
21 Nov 1944 The Hinzert Concentration Camp administratively became a
satellite camp of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
16 Dec 1944 Mauthausen Concentration Camp's satellite camp Gusen III
began operations in the town of Lungitz with 262 prisoners; it would
eventually grow to house 67,667 prisoners before the end of the war,
about half of which would not survive.
22 Dec 1944 Two Ukrainian peasants, Hermann and Emma Kurras, were
executed after a trial for hiding thirteen Jews who had escaped from a
concentration camp.
25 Dec 1944 Three baby girls were born in the Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in occupied Poland.
30 Dec 1944 150 female prisoners of Auschwitz Concentration Camp were
employed in the demolition squad (Abbruchkommando), working on the
demolition of crematorium III. 50 female prisoners worked in the
forestry-demolition squad (Gehölz-Abbruchkommando), which was filling in
the incineration pits and covering them with grass and planting small
trees on the grounds of crematorium IV.
1 Jan 1945 100 male and 100 female Polish prisoners of the Gestapo from
block 11 in Auschwitz I camp were transferred by SS doctor Fritz Klein
to the chief of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Crematorium V Erich Muhsfeldt.
Muhsfeldt's men executed these police prisoners by firing squad.
5 Jan 1945 The last session of the police summary court of the
Kattowitz Gestapo took place in block 11 in Auschwitz I camp. Around 100
Polish prisoners were condemned to death, to be executed by firing squad
on the next day. The court was presided by Johannes Thuemmler. These
prisoners were under the jurisdiction of the Gestapo and not of the
commandant of the concentration camp.
6 Jan 1945 Four Jewish women, Ella Gartner, Róza Robota, Regina Safir,
and Estera Wajsblum, were executed by hanging in the female camp of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp; they had smuggled explosives out of their
workplace which were used during the 7 Oct 1944 uprising in the camp.
About 100 other Auschwitz prisoners were also executed on this date,
having sentenced to death by the Kattowitz Gestapo on the previous day;
they faced a firing squad at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and were sent to
Crematorium V. These prisoners were among the last to be executed at
Auschwitz.
10 Jan 1945 Female prisoners of Uckermark Concentration Camp who were
not able to work were exterminated.
15 Jan 1945 German report noted that the total number of prisoners in
concentration camps was 714,211; there were about 40,000 guards at the
camps.
16 Jan 1945 Soviet troops liberated concentration camps at Czestochowa
(800 prisoners) and Lodz (870 prisoners) in Poland.
17 Jan 1945 67,012 prisoners were present at Auschwitz Concentration
Camp's last evening roll call; they would soon embark on the Death
March. Meanwhile, Nazi doctor Josef Mengele began to destroy his
laboratories at sector BIIf of Birkenau camp; he would soon evacuate the
camp with records of his experiments on twins, dwarfs, and disabled people.
18 Jan 1945 66,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp were
transferred into Germany.
27 Jan 1945 Reconnaissance troops of the Soviet 100th Infantry Division
discovered the prisoners' infirmary at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp
at about 0900 hours. The remainder of the division arrived 30 minutes
later. Soviet troops entered the main camp in the afternoon where they
fought off the remaining German resistance at the cost of 231 lives. By
this time, only 7,000 prisoners remained to be liberated in the entire
Auschwitz system; the bulk of had been marched away previously.
5 Feb 1945 The RSHA transported approximately 1,200 Jews from
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Switzerland.
3 Mar 1945 Prisoners at Hinzert satellite camp of Buchenwald
Concentration Camp were evacuated.
8 Mar 1945 Between 1,070 and 1,150 Hungarian Jews arrived at the
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. They were
originally deported to the Austrian border in 1944.
12 Mar 1945 German Jew Anne Frank died in Belsen Concentration Camp.
30 Mar 1945 Jewish women being led to their deaths at the Ravensbrück
Concentration Camp in Germany fought against their SS guards in an
attempt to escape. Nine of them got away, but they were soon captured
and were killed with the rest of the group.
4 Apr 1945 Troops of US 89th Infantry Division captured Ohrdruf
Concentration Camp in Germany, which was a satellite of Buchenwald
Concentration Camp.
6 Apr 1945 15,000 prisoners of Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany
were evacuated by German authorities.
6 Apr 1945 In occupied Czechoslovakia, International Red Cross
representatives visited the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.
6 Apr 1945 Prisoners of Moringen Concentration Camp who could walk were
sent on a death march toward the east; those who remained would be
liberated by troops of the Western Allies three days later.
9 Apr 1945 Moringen Concentration Camp was liberated by Allied troops.
11 Apr 1945 Prisoners of Buchenwald Concentration Camp freed themselves
after most of the guards had fled. In the Buchenwald satellite camp of
Langenstein, the US 83rd Infantry Division arrived; it had about 1,100
prisoners at the time.
12 Apr 1945 American troops began arriving at Buchenwald Concentration
Camp near Weimar, Germany.
12 Apr 1945 The Westerbork Concentration Camp at Hooghalen in the
Netherlands was liberated by the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division.
14 Apr 1945 On this day and the next, 423 Danish Jews were transferred
from the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia
back to their home country via trucks hired by the Swedish Red Cross.
15 Apr 1945 British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
in Germany, which had about 40,000 prisoners at the time.
20 Apr 1945 Between 13,500 and 15,000 prisoners were transferred from
Buchenwald and Gross-Rosen subcamps to the Theresienstadt Concentration
Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia over the following 20 days.
21 Apr 1945 International Red Cross representatives visited the
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.
22 Apr 1945 Polish 2nd Infantry Division captured Sachsenhausen
Concentration Camp, Oranienburg, Germany, with a prisoner population of
about 3,000 at the time.
23 Apr 1945 Prisoners of Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück Concentration
Camps in Germany began to be evacuated by German authorities; some Jews
were massacred by SS guards this week as the last massacres of the war.
24 Apr 1945 US First Army liberated Dachau Concentration Camp in
southern Germany.
28 Apr 1945 A group of Austrian resistance fighters became the last
victims of gassings at Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
29 Apr 1945 In Germany, troops of US 157th and 122nd Infantry Regiments
executed 165 German SS prisoners of war at Dachau Concentration Camp and
the hamlet of Weßling to the southwest before a colonel intervened.
2 May 1945 Commandant Rahm of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
relinquished control of the camp to the International Red Cross.
3 May 1945 RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers, looking for ships transporting
German troops to Norway where it was believed they planned to make a
last stand, attacked and sank the troopships Cap Arcona and Thielbek,
which were actually loaded with concentration camp inmates under
transportation. The full death toll had never been established but could
be as high as 8,000 from the two ships, including crews and SS guards.
4 May 1945 British troops entered Neuengamme Concentration Camp near
Hamburg, Germany.
5 May 1945 US 11th Armored Division entered Mauthausen Concentration
Camp in occupied Austria region of Germany. The Council of Jewish Elders
at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia, operating under
Commandant Rahm, met with the commandant for the last time. The council
was dissolved after that meeting. Later that day, Rahm fled the camp
ahead of the advancing Soviet troops.
8 May 1945 Soviet troops liberated Theresienstadt Concentration Camp;
about 30,000 prisoners were present at the camp at the time.
9 May 1945 Soviet troops captured Stutthof Concentration Camp near
Danzig, Germany (now Gdansk, Poland) and reached Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia.
7 Jun 1945 The Western Allies made German citizens in their occupation
zones watch films about the Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camps.
Photographs
German SA men publicly humiliating Jewish attorney Michael Siegel,
München, Germany, 10 Mar 1933, photo 1 of 2 German SA men publicly
humiliating Jewish attorney Michael Siegel, München, Germany, 10 Mar
1933, photo 2 of 2 German SA men with political prisoners at Oranienburg
Concentration Camp, Brandenburg, Germany, Aug 1933 Political prisoners
at Oranienburg Concentration Camp, Brandenburg, Germany, Aug 1933
See all 89 photographs of Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust
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Visitor Submitted Comments
Susan Agronick says:
11 Mar 2008 03:12:10 PM
My heart breaks every time I see these images,BUT THEY ARE NESSESARY TO
REMIND US TO NEVER FORGET! I think these people in the photos are
passing away and the anti-semetic rhetoric that the camps never
existed,come back every once and a while, we must never let these people
who were murdered by the German Nazi population.
I have distant cousins from Poland and I know they don't exist anymore
because they were killed by the same citizens who a few years before
were their neighbors, their customers, even friends. One day these very
people turned away and allowed their pain to go on, clinging to a
philosophy that told them these people were the cause of all the
disorder in their life. I wish I could bring them all back to life, but
alas even the very survivors of the camps are dying off.
As I SAID, WE CAN NEVER FORGET OR WE RISK THIS TRAGEDY HAPPENING AGAIN.
May we all learn not to tolerate this disgusting rhetoric again!
victoria loves tiffany and tiffany loves victoria says:
14 Mar 2008 05:24:07 PM
we love this but wer not geeks
victoria loves tiffany and tiffany loves victoria says:
14 Mar 2008 05:26:49 PM
that pic is so sad when u look at it .it makes u think
victoria loves tiffany and tiffany loves victoria says:
14 Mar 2008 05:29:11 PM
sorry u spelled july wrong
kaylie says:
20 Mar 2008 09:31:50 AM
this is very intresting but very sad at the same time....:(
Anonymous says:
20 Mar 2008 12:47:27 PM
i know it vary sad
Anonymous says:
20 Mar 2008 12:52:25 PM
sad
Anonymous says:
20 Mar 2008 12:55:35 PM
people should not have to be straved and homeless they have feelings
RIGHT?
victoria says:
20 Mar 2008 02:45:09 PM
who ever wrote 4 3 2 is just being stupid cause my greatgreatgrandad was
a jew and he died my greatgranddad barely got away
Bree says:
20 Mar 2008 02:55:52 PM
sorry victoria i also think this is vary sad and its nothing to laugh about
Anonymous says:
21 Mar 2008 04:23:53 PM
i think the holocaustis sad and depressing.the holocaust is about how
aldof hitler wanted to rule the world and kill all the jews. he felt
that jews were unfit for life and he almost acomplished both of his goal
and ended up killing 9 million people. 6 million of them were jews that
meant men, women, and children.
Anonymous says:
16 May 2008 08:25:01 AM
The holocaust is an important part of Canadian history too, keep in
mind, Canada was there when all this was happening. And it's happening
again, maybe not to the degree that Hitler took it to, but the battle in
Afganastan will turn into a war eventually. And where will Canada be?
Right on the front lines defending our rights and freedoms like we
always have. In the end of both the previous world wars, Canada made a
major difference in the outcome, we have to remember that, and be proud.
Because we may end up doing in again.
kaylie stevens says:
26 Jun 2008 09:25:44 PM
i think this is a very interesting and sad subject and i agree with bree
and victoria that it is not somthing to laughf bout hitler was a very
evil man and should have done those ppl better dont you think?
Kiezauna Gallimore says:
15 Oct 2008 10:10:16 AM
This is all so awfull
and all the information is very usefull i wasnt alive at the time but i
can some how picture the horros of the ages
if anything like that happend to day
may god help us
thank you for the information
it helped me alot with my project
if any one has anymore information please email me
Anonymous says:
15 Apr 2009 06:36:07 AM
boo
Trevor says:
19 May 2009 03:57:25 PM
you all are pretty ignorate. don't actually listen to anything that
these people comment about. 99% of it is based on their 2nd grade
history teacher's knowledge on the holocaust, which she obtain from only
reading "night". the holocaust was bad i very much understand this, but
how is a bunch of grade school kids repeating their teachers ideas on
the internet a good use of anyones time. don't draw conclusion about
subject from sources with so lil knowledge and so much bias (im talking
about the comment not the article) and dont forget u all dont have to be
bleeding hearts about the subject just cause u know someone who know's
someone's uncle who was in a camp. if u approach it more objectively u
can weed out the idiots from the intellectuals. basicly im saying grow
up think of urself and no one here care about ur opinon. i of course
realise u will now want doubt my comment aswell, not just cause
predujuste against an different view but also because what i wrote
above. i encourage the critsizuam and love that i just made u read think
and think more indepently.
*I re summited this to let yall know my name
PCE im out.
Anonymous says:
25 Jul 2009 07:53:51 AM
we must never agian let this happen
guess who meeee lol says:
3 Dec 2009 05:02:02 PM
very sad indeed
Anonymous says:
28 Jan 2010 09:18:26 AM
i hat the things tht the people did to the jews but its weird cuz im not
a jew and im 14 haha
Anonymous says:
31 Jan 2010 07:00:54 PM
It's hard to think what happened to the Jews and so many people in the
holocaust. Some people think it's so cruel they refuse to even believe
it happened.
Anonymous says:
10 Feb 2010 04:51:31 PM
make's me want to cry
Anonymous says:
9 Mar 2010 09:53:20 PM
The Holocaust is so sad. It disgusts me that people could actually just
go and kill poeple like that, just because their different. What
disgusts me even more is that it could have been MY ancestors doing
this. I cry when we learn about the Holocaust and all these other
inhumane things people have done out of spite. people are raised to
hate, and its just sad people are like that. Schindlers List is a movie
I've seen, and it is very good at portraying the way things were then. I
starting balling when they showed all the little kids going off in
trucks to die, and how they were oblvious to what was going to happen to
them, and how they were waving and smiling at their parents. It's just
so sad. :(
Anonymous says:
23 Mar 2010 06:41:27 AM
it pains me to think that all this happened. My half aunt has german
ancestry. So it really makes me angry when she makes racist comments,
especially when it was her ancestors that commited this awful crime. It
also pains me to think that no matter how many pictures we have to
remind us of what happened we continue to discriminate and no one seems
to do anything about it. Look at the genocide in Rwanda in 1993 some
tried but no one really did a thing about it, an entire race nearly went
extinct because of discrimination and hate and barely anyone did a ****
thing about it. All though we must respect the brave few who did do
there best to make a difference. And whether we know it or not there are
other genocides going on today, The U.N just tries to keep it under
wraps becasue they aren't doing anytrhing about it bcuz they are minor
countries. I think it's horrible there all for humanity but yet they
discriminate against small countries as if they don't matter, regardless
they are still poepl and they should still give a ****
Anonymous says:
12 May 2010 06:29:56 PM
The Holocaust is not something to laugh about. It is very real and is
one of the most terrible events in the history of mankind. I tear up at
the pictures of the mass graves and such, but it is important to never
forget. Never forget.
There were people other than Jewish people who perished in WWII. Of the
millions of people dead of the Holocaust, I've heard just under half of
them were not Jewish - for instance, the Roma gypsy people were almost
wiped out completely.
Never forget.
Anonymous says:
26 May 2010 07:03:23 PM
Sad...how could the nazis do this to such innocent people!? this is so
wrong.
Anonymous says:
17 Aug 2010 02:32:28 AM
sad, should not of happened
Deb says:
3 Oct 2010 01:34:18 PM
"Sad"?
That's an euphemism. It's horrible. Disgusting REVOLTING.
Anonymous says:
23 Nov 2010 04:25:26 PM
its disgusting how someone could have done this to so many people..
still after knowing he could have had some Jewish blood in him..
Anonymous says:
8 Jan 2011 08:05:47 PM
what the heck was wrong with those sick peoples mind? The jews are and
were just normal people!Thats sooo soooo... like sad and evil. I know
that im only 13 but ,god, even i can see that killing people just
because of their is sick,wrong,sad and cruel.
Anonymous says:
8 Jan 2011 08:12:06 PM
Im ashamed of this evil past
Anonymous says:
19 Jan 2011 09:04:52 AM
Trevor:
No-one who writes so poorly should ever expect to be taken seriously.
Grow up & learn to communicate properly. I dare say the second-grade
teacher to whom you refer knows a good deal more than you do about the
Holocaust.
I am neither Jewish nor a teacher.
There will always be controversy & misinformation about something so
inconceivably horrible as the Holocaust. I lived in Germany for 3 1/2
years in the late 1970s. I knew a couple who had managed to escape from
Auschwitz when they were children. Anna, the wife, was literally missing
half of her face, including one eye, because when she was a little girl,
she & her family were starving, as were a great many Europeans at that
time. One night she was caught by an SS guard stealing a fallen apple
from underneath one of Hitler’s orchard trees. He bashed in half of her
head with the butt of his rifle & left her there to die. But Anna
survived. When she told me about that, I knew just where it had
happened. What had been Luftwaffe barracks was, at the time I was there,
the U.S. Army family housing where I lived with my family. Karl, Anna’s
husband told me one day that it was surprisingly easy for them to escape
from Auschwitz & that so many didn’t try because they were so afraid of
the Nazis.
I am not easy to convince & I’m actually regarded as skeptical by most
who know me. In fact, I generally believe in thinking for myself as you
suggest. I have probably been doing that since long before you were
born. I have studied the Holocaust off & on for about 45 years now,
including talking with eye-witnesses. I have been to Dachau & seen for
myself. My personal experiences do not make me an expert, & I know that.
The Holocaust wasn’t just a Jewish issue. Some studies have concluded
that roughly as many non-Jews as Jews were murdered by the Nazis. There
is evidence that as many as eleven million innocent civilians were
killed by the Nazis. There were a great many more killed than were
recorded in the “official” Nazi records. Many of the details will
probably remain unknown for eternity. But it did happen. And it really
was as bad as they say – probably much worse.
We must NEVER FORGET lest we be doomed to repeatedly relive the hell of
the WWII Holocaust.
Nicki Minaj says:
4 Apr 2011 10:15:54 AM
This is so cruel what people could do to so many innocent people and
children. This information is so heart-wrenching.
Justin Bieber says:
4 Apr 2011 07:57:50 PM
I agree with you guys. I dont know why they had the power to do this to
these innocent people for so long and no one could do anything about it.
I'm just so glad that the Germans and Jews worked this out enough so
this all wasnt still going on today.
basia says:
25 Apr 2011 02:54:21 PM
my mother& father lived through this horrific event along with their
families.my uncle Br.Cyril Dardzinski, a franciscan monk, helped
thousands of Jewish and Polish people & was later executed. My mother at
age 16 had to dig through a ditch of hundreds of bodies to find him for
burial. i have pics of this. This has impacted our family tremendously.
Anonymous says:
12 May 2011 08:56:08 AM
No puedo creer todo lo que paso y esta gente se sigue peleando nada.,
estoy de acuerdo que quieran expresar su punto de vista , o sus bromas
...pero sin ser ni fanatica religiosa, ni judia , ni alemana ...lo uico
es entender como Benito Juarez , un indio zapoteca que llego a ser
presidente de Mexico "El respeto a el derecho ajeno es la paz" el dia
que entiendamos sus palabras , aunque hablemos diferentes idiomas , sera
el dia en que reinara la paz en el mundo ...
Anonymous says:
22 Jun 2011 04:49:28 PM
the sad thing is, aushwitz has brought many to a realization. we are no
longer surprised at how inhuman people can be, but how many people have
survived this long.
Steve McCarthy says:
4 Dec 2011 11:13:33 AM
21 April 1945 - members of the 386th brigade, 97th Infantry, liberate
Flossenberg
Anonymous says:
4 Dec 2011 12:35:05 PM
sure but there is not the video convict because that the wehrmacht
obtained the victory
Anonymous says:
7 Mar 2012 09:43:24 AM
that is soo sad to believe what happened to 11 million ppl
Anonymous says:
23 Mar 2012 10:26:27 AM
i've reconciled that despite how many memoirs I've read or will read
about the Holocaust and the Shoah, I'll never be able to understand the
depths of depravity to which mankind stooped. I take comfort in knowing
that those who perished were freed from this world of illusion, that
they were no longer "contained by their perimeters." That they were the
true victors in every sense of the word.
Anonymous says:
24 Apr 2012 06:23:39 PM
My grandmothers brother may have been one of the 728 prisoners sent to
Auschwitz in June 1940. My Aunt remembers her Mother getting two
letters. The first saying that her brother was taken in the middle of
the night (He was some type of village official) then a second letter
months later saying that he had died of pneumonia . It's difficult to
trace or confirm because so many records have been destroyed.
Anonymous says:
3 Dec 2012 06:28:12 AM
wow i can belive on how they treaded the prisioners. that is very bad.:(
Anonymous says:
27 Mar 2013 08:19:33 AM
My father "WASYL WLADYLO" was in Dachau and Natzweiler concentration
camps. He was a member of the French Resistance and also was in the
Polish army. I remember first hand stories of how the Nazis used to burn
people alive and the "morning lineup for hanging" he said "I used to eat
rocks and dirt to stay alive" it's all true.
Anonymous says:
8 Apr 2013 01:48:17 PM
We are studying this topic in school, it is horrible what the Nazis did
to these poor innocent people
Anonymous says:
15 May 2013 02:07:57 PM
poor peolpe
Goldie says:
30 Oct 2013 08:50:22 PM
First....who is reading this site? Are they in pre-school? The language,
grammar, spelling of almost everyone on here is atrocious. Not to
mention the context is definitely not that of an adult.
That's great that kids are reading this and learning but they also need
to pay attention in school so that they can be taken seriously when they
post on ANY site but specifically such a serious one as this.
Now...to the issue. I get really angry at they nay-sayers in relation to
the holocaust. It happened. PERIOD. The scary thing is that now that
most of the survivors are dying off, there will be no one to give
first-hand accounts and the idiots who say it didn't happen can say it's
hearsay.
Pictures like this don't lie. These pics were taken long before
Photoshopping was a reality. If all the photos were from one source you
might be able to question it. But there are photos taken by a myriad of
individuals.
Bottom line...this country is dangerously close to a civil war. One of
the first things Hitler did before he became the tyrant was to remove
private weapons from the populace. There are several quotes of him
saying you can't control an armed populace. Obama is trying hard to do
this. Don't hide your heads in the sand.
And if you ARE young children, don't grow up to be blind - that is if
you GET to grow up. There is talk, and I don't claim to be able to prove
it, that there are concentration camps ready here. No president has even
thought of using them....until Obama. Wake up.
Anonymous says:
28 Dec 2013 11:28:56 AM
This will sound unbelievable but I met an elderly gentlemen in tracks,as
we both bent to buy cat food,we spoke of our love of our pets and ended
up talking of when he helped liberate Austwitz what he told me haunts me
to this day.
Anonymous says:
3 Feb 2014 03:09:17 PM
25 Dec 1944 Three baby girls were born in the Auschwitz Concentration
Camp in occupied Poland.... My mom is one from this three baby girls ...
her mom left her after, as she was 5 mounths old and she never saw her
again,, she found her but her mom didn't want to see her or talk to
her.... I'm sooo proud of my mom, she is the best mom in the world and I
love her from all my heart.
Num says:
24 Feb 2014 11:12:22 PM
Search for "History of Romania part 15 - Holocaust" on youtube to see
the lies of the anti-Romanian propaganda exposed.
Anonymous says:
12 Mar 2014 12:28:46 PM
I have read some of the comments against the fact that they didn't
exist, I am in my 60's and watched all the documentaries of the
discoveries of the camps as did my wife who is older than me and is
somewhat of an expert on the subject, believe me they did exist. I
worked for a Jewish company for 20 years in the 1970's and meet many of
the survivors I saw the tattoo's on the arms of those survivors. I am a
Christian and in my 30's I decided to train to be a Methodist Lay
Preacher and was behind on my studies so I thought I would catch up on
my homework and was reading a book on Christian Theology whilst on an
Air Canada flight to Vancouver. I had been upgraded to First Class and
the man sitting next to me and said how could I read the book and
explained my reasons. He replied that he had been a Christian until 1945
he explained he was a Canadian Doctor and was one of the first Doctors
to go in to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and had to treat the dying from
whom he received first hand knowledge of the Horrors of what had gone on
in the Camps but he said the German SS had left behind so much evidence.
I will not repeat what he told me but he told me how could God have let
this happen 6,000,000 people killed by the Germans he told how much he
struggled with his faith but he had to leave his faith the biggest
decision in his life. So look at Germany today 2014 the strongest
Country in the EU and they did not pay the price for mass murder and it
wasn't just Jews but British and Allied troops captured and who had
tried to escape from regular Prisoner of War Camps too many times. I
believe that every Child in the EU should be told in the Classroom about
what went on and the live footage taken at the time they should be shown
it. The Japanese were just as bad and Allied troops from all over the
world should be told how they treated by them, starved and worked to
DEATH. The Japanese are another of the Countries who got way without
punishment and their economy is as strong as Germany because we actually
help them put their Countries back together. I am still a Christian and
believe that payment for the sins committed by both the Germans and
Japanese have not been paid in this life but they will be. The memory of
what really happened should never be forgotten.
Anonymous says:
16 Mar 2014 07:52:49 AM
Why did America and Britain send back ships of Jewish escapees? This
should be researched.
David Stubblebine says:
16 Mar 2014 08:12:30 PM
To Anonymous of Comment #51:
Who says America and Britain sent back ships of Jewish escapees? What
prompted posting that question here; I found no mention of it elsewhere
on the page? You say “This should be researched.” You’re right. Why
don’t you do it? Why don’t you do it PRIOR to posting unsubstantiated
and inflammatory comments like this one?
Max Igan says:
19 Mar 2014 10:03:10 PM
In the spirit of open, truthful and transparent discourse in this highly
senitive matter, and in looking at the chronology provided here... why
is the Transfer Agreement, which saw the removal of 60,000 jews from
Germany to Palestine between 1933 and 1941, and the $100million provided
by Germany to ensure the safe arrival of the jews and set up the basic
foundation for what would later become modern day Israel (all which is
well documented fact) not addressed in this report?
Anonymous says:
29 Mar 2014 03:39:38 PM
22 Dec 1944 Two Ukrainian peasants, Hermann and Emma Kurras, were
executed after a trial for hiding thirteen Jews who had escaped from a
concentration camp.
* These two people were my great-grandparents and one of their three
sons is still alive today (my grandfather). I have spent about 10 years
trying to find information on them and it is my dream to somehow locate
a photograph of them... hopefully one day, I'll find one!
don says:
13 Apr 2014 01:59:55 AM
53. - Because we cannot be critical of Israel in any way whatsoever,
lest we be tarred with the 'Anti-Semite' brush. Sadly, Israel today is
becoming reminiscent of the Nazi mind-set in its treatment of Palestinians.
Mod: I don't blame you for not posting this.
Anonymous says:
1 Jul 2014 04:05:47 AM
"Majdanek was burned in attempt to mask its presence as the Germans
retreated from the region but the remains of gas chambers were evident."
the biggest BS ever...How many years must past, how many real evidence
has to be shown to the world, so people can stop talking of this bigges
hoax of the history of mankind. Shame ! Shame! Shame!
Ileavazan says:
1 Jul 2014 04:17:29 AM
You will never publsh my post but I'm sure Millions knoaw that all this
is one big BS Zionist propaganda made by the "Big Three" who in a
reality come up with the holohoax in order to cover up their own crimes
ageinst the humanity.
Those so call "good guys" during the WW2 were and still are the "
ranting jackass(es) who led people to ruin" ..Basically they went
against Germany to keep doing their own crimes and tyrannic agendas
against the humanity... I'm not sure if you are aware but by the time of
the outbreak of war in 1939, one of the main character during WW2 or as
I call it -" the bad guy" was Britain who ruled over the largest
colonial empire in history, holding more millions of people against
their will ( ( means colonized, enslave and kill) than any regime before
or since. This vast empire included what is now India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South
Africa. ( this is all fact - trust me)
In the other hand the other main character of WW2 or "the good guy" was
USSR, the most evil and tyrannic society known to man, and with vastly
more cruel despotism than Hitler's Germany, under which over 20 Million
Russians perished, by the time of Stalin's death. ( it is also well
documented fact) .
So the third of the "big three" or " the ugly"- (USA) helped
substantially to maintain Stalin's tyranny, and to aid the Soviet Union
in oppressing additional millions of Europeans, while also helping
Britain to maintain or re-establish its imperial rule over many millions
in Asia and Africa. Moreover, under of pretext of "spreading democracy"
it turned to one of the most oppressive and war-loving country in the
past 70 years..
In fact after WW2, Europe for the first time in its history was no
longer master of its own destiny, but was instead under the domination
of two great outer European powers, the US & USSR, which for political
and ideological reasons had no special interest in, or concern for,
European culture or Western civilization and managed very well to
destroy it.
Anonymous says:
2 Jul 2014 06:05:49 AM
Hey Anonymous #52 the facts exist , so don't try to make people stupid
or point finger at them just becouse they asked a reasnoble questions on
this pro-Jewsh article which allow ony brainwash or retarded people to
make comments without knowing the real facts behind the biggest lie in
the history . And if you so smart go and google " MS St. Louis " ( a
German ocean liner) carring 937 Jews refugge whom US , Cuba and Canada
refused to grantet entries. Eventually they have been returned back to
Europe where most of them died in some of the 42,000 Consentration Labor
cams ( take a wild guess why the number is so big and why no one
officially like to discussed that in mainstream media?).
And YES for your information, which you don't dare to search becouse of
your hypocracy or stupidity , during the period between 1938-1948
Britain did not view Jewish refugees in a humanitarian , therefore they
could be deported ( and were) back to Germany.
AND YES ! US State Department policies made it very difficult for
refugees to obtain entry visas. Despite the ongoing persecution of Jews
in Germany,he State Department's attitude was influenced by the economic
hardships of the Depression, which intensified grassroots antisemitism,
isolationism, and xenophobia. Also the official ( and correct propaganda
at the time was ) that the Jews are Communists (which was true) ,
therefore threat for National security. Unfortunatelly, you still goung
to stay ignorent ( or hypocrat ) becouse this message will not be posted
by this site, just like they ignore my other two comments .
Ilea Vazan says:
3 Jul 2014 01:05:49 AM
I have to apologised to this site for previously accusing them of not
publishing my posts ! Obviously it takes time before any posts goes live
, but to me the reason that they did not appeared was because of my
orthodox POV to the official version of the topic ! So, I do thank you
for that !
David Stubblebine says:
3 Jul 2014 09:56:53 PM
Ilea:
Your discourteous writing style aside, thank you for providing at least
a few tidbits of factual information, particularly the reference to the
MS St Louis. This was more than Anonymous #51 did. I had not heard of
this episode before but I am glad to have learned of it now. The US
Holocaust Memorial Museum has a well researched and thorough article on
the voyage of the St Louis in 1939:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267. However you
overstate the facts a little: there were initially 938 passengers (not
937) and 254 ultimately died in the camps (27 percent is not “most” –
but it is still a lot). The primary point remains, however, that these
refugees sought safety in the west and were turned away.
There is some truth in the claim that the Human Rights records for the
United States and Great Britain for this period both have some
disturbing blemishes, the voyage of the St Louis being only one. But I
don’t think this is an exercise to find who was completely blameless
during the war years. That would be a contest with no winners. The
effort should be aimed at assessing who, on balance, was MOSTLY on the
right side the moral questions – LARGELY on the right side would be even
better. On that basis, I remain quite comfortable believing the US & UK,
warts and all, had it over Germany head and shoulders.
You raise the matter of the strange alliance the US & UK had with the
USSR. This was an odd partnership, to be sure, but it was an alliance of
necessity. This is perhaps the most classic example of the principle
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It was not a perfect association.
Throttle back the vitriol a little bit and your remarks can add an
interesting perspective to the conversation.
ileavazan says:
3 Jul 2014 10:13:22 PM
My last post #58 was addressed to Mr. David Stubblebine , which not on
purpose I've indicated as Anonymous #52. So, Mr. Stubblebine, I do
understand you racial and pro- American POV to a simple, substantiated
and fair question from Anonymous #51 , so like it or not they are facts
on the issue, which I've already pointed out for your information ( see
post #58) , so in reality that make your comments inflammatory for
people that are not ignorant, hypocritical and brainwashed .
Sam says:
2 Aug 2014 01:03:34 AM
Having read the article, what disturbs me is that whilst this highlights
the way the Jews were treated, no mention is made of those from the
gypsy communities, physically disabled, those with learning disabilities
and were in mental homes who were also treated in the same manner. When
the various Holocaust memorials etc, give these people, as much
attention as the Jewish community, I will stop suspecting that sections
of the Jewish community, are using this a prpoganda to get sympathy for
the way they treat their neighbours.
Anonymous says:
6 Dec 2014 12:23:02 PM
12 Mar 1945 German Jew Anne Frank died in Belsen Concentration Camp
Anne Frank was Dutch.
C. Peter Chen says:
6 Dec 2014 07:57:41 PM
To Anonymous of 6 Dec 2014: Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany.
Her family moved to the Netherlands in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution.
mrzol says:
9 Jan 2015 10:20:44 PM
How could humans to this to other humans?
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