Holocaust timeline

  • Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany

    Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany
  • Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht
    Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence
  • Germany invades Poland, starting WWII

  • Germans establish a ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland

  • Jews 10 yrs of age or older had to wear the Star of David (segregation)

    Jews 10 yrs of age or older had to wear the Star of David (segregation)
  • Mobile killing units kill about 3,000 Jews

  • Period: to

    Germans had killed/shot over 50,000 Jews

  • Germans begin the mass deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Lodz to the Chelmno killing center

    Germans begin the mass deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Lodz to the Chelmno killing center
  • Germans begin the deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Drancy, outside Paris, to the east (primarily to Auschwitz)

    Germans begin the deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Drancy, outside Paris, to the east (primarily to Auschwitz)
  • Warsaw ghetto uprising begins

    Warsaw ghetto uprising begins
  • Germans begin mass deportations of nearly 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to the east (primarily to Auschwitz)

    Germans begin mass deportations of nearly 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to the east (primarily to Auschwitz)
  • Germans begin the mass deportation of over 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center

  • Germans complete the mass deportation of about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka

  • Nazi Germany decalres war on the U.S.

  • Rescue of Jews in Denmark

  • Death march of nearly 60,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz camp system in southern Poland

    Death march of nearly 60,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz camp system in southern Poland
    SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands alive to tell their stories to Allied and Soviet liberators. The SS thought they needed prisoners to maintain production of armaments wherever possible. Some SS leaders, including Himmler, believed irrationally that they could use Jewish concentration camp prisoners as hostages to bargain for a separate peace in the west that would guarantee the survival of the Nazi regime.
  • Death march of nearly 50,000 prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland

  • Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz camp complex

  • American forces liberate the Dachau concentration camp

  • Adolf Hitler commits suicide

  • Germany surrenders to the western Allies

  • Germany surrenders to the Soviets