-
In March 1933, Adolf Hitler addressed the first session
of the German Parliament (Reichstag) following his
appointment as chancellor. -
A woman reads a boycott sign
posted on the window of a
Jewish-owned department store.
The Nazis initiated a boycott of
Jewish shops and businesses on
April 1, 1933, across Germany. -
Among other things, the laws issued in September
1935 restricted future German citizenship to those
of “German or kindred blood,” and excluded those
deemed to be “racially” Jewish or Roma (Gypsy). -
Residents of Rostock, Germany,
view a burning synagogue the
morning after Kristallnacht
(“Night of Broken Glass”). On
the night of November 9–10,
1938, the Nazi regime unleashed
orchestrated anti-Jewish violence
across greater Germany. -
In May 1939 the passenger ship St. Louis—seen here
before departing Hamburg—sailed from Germany to
Cuba carrying 937 passengers, most of them Jews. -
Sections of Warsaw lay in ruins following the invasion
and conquest of Poland by the German military begun
in September 1939 that propelled Europe into World
War II. -
In November 1940, German authorities sealed the
Warsaw ghetto, severely restricting supplies for the
more than 300,000 Jews living there. -
About a quarter of all Jews
who perished in the Holocaust
were shot by SS mobile killing
squads and police battalions
following the German invasion
of the Soviet Union in June
1941.