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Period: to
World War I
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"President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany."
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"SS opens the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich."
"Established in March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as 'the first concentration camp for political prisoners.'" - United States Holocaust Museum Website -
"Boycott of Jewish-owned shops and businesses in Germany."
"On April 1, 1933, the Nazis carried out the first nationwide, planned action against Jews: a boycott targeting Jewish businesses and professionals. The boycott was both a reprisal and an act of revenge against Gruelpropaganda (atrocity stories) that German and foreign Jews, assisted by foreign journalists, were allegedly circulating in the international press to damage Nazi Germany's reputation." - United States Holocaust Museum Website -
"Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service"
"Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service remove[d] Jews from government service." -
"Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases."
"On July 14, 1933, the Nazi government instituted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.” This law, one of the first steps taken by the Nazis toward their goal of creating an Aryan “master race,” called for the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, such as mental illness, learning disabilities, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism." - United States Holocaust Museum Website -
"Nuremberg Race Laws"
"At their annual party rally held in Nuremberg in September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. These "Nuremberg Laws" excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of 'German or German-related blood.'" - United States Holocaust Museum Website -
"Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss (Union)"
"After a prolonged period of economic stagnation, political dictatorship, and intense Nazi propaganda inside Austria, German troops entered the country on March 12, 1938. They received the enthusiastic support of most of the population. Austria was incorporated into Germany the next day. Following the Anschluss, the Germans quickly extended anti-Jewish legislation to Austria." - United States Holocaust Museum Website -
"Kristallnacht (nationwide pogrom in Germany)"
"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, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops." -
Germany invades Poland, starting World War II in Europe
"On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack." -
Period: to
World War II
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"Germans establish a ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland"
"The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options to realize the goal of removing the Jewish population." -
"Germany attacks western Europe (France and the Low Countries)"
"The campaign against the Low Countries and France lasted less than six weeks. Germany attacked in the west on May 10, 1940. Initially, British and French commanders had believed that German forces would attack through central Belgium as they had in World War I, and rushed forces to the Franco-Belgian border to meet the German attack." -
"Le Chambon Rescue Mission Begins"
"The organized rescue effort began during the winter of 1940, when Pastor Trocmé established contact with the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) in Marseilles in order to assist in providing relief supplies to the 30,000 foreign Jews held in internment camps in southern France." -
Period: to
Le Chambon's Rescue Mission
Led by Pastor André Trocmé of the Reformed Church of France, his wife Magda, and his assistant, Pastor Edouard Theis, the residents of these villages offered shelter in private homes, in hotels, on farms, and in schools. They forged identification and ration cards for the refugees, and in some cases guided them across the border to neutral Switzerland. These actions of rescue were unusual during the period of the Holocaust insofar... -
Period: to
Holocaust
The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. Mass killings began in June 1941 with the shooting of Jewish civilians during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. At the end of 1941, the Germans began deporting Jews to killing centers in occupied Poland. By May 1945, about two out of every three Jews in Europe had been murdered. -
Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) shoot nearly 3,000 Jews at the Seventh Fort, one of the 19th-century fortifications surrounding Kovno
"Einsatzgruppe detachments and Lithuanian auxiliaries shot thousands of Jewish men, women, and children, primarily in the Ninth Fort, but also in the Fourth and Seventh forts. Within six months of the German occupation of the city, the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators had murdered half of all Jews in Kovno." -
Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Muenster denounces the “euthanasia” killing program in a public sermon
The term "euthanasia" (literally, "good death") usually refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual who would otherwise suffer. In the Nazi context, however, "euthanasia" represented a euphemistic term for a clandestine murder program which targeted for systematic killing mentally and physically disabled patients living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories. -
The first killing operations begin at Chelmno in occupied Poland
The Jews then entered the manor house. Once inside they were led to a back room where they undressed and handed over their valuables against receipts to a Polish civilian, who was employed by the special detachment. SS and police personnel led the naked prisoners to the cellar, where they had to walk down a ramp sloping into the back of a large paneled truck that could hold 50-70 persons. When the back of the van was full, the doors were closed and sealed. The mechanic on duty attached a tube to -
Nazi Germany declares war on the United States
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Germans begin the mass deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Lodz to the Chelmno killing center
In 1941 and 1942, almost 40,000 Jews were deported to the Lodz ghetto: 20,000 from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Luxembourg, and almost 20,000 from the smaller provincial towns in the Warthegau. About 5,000 Roma (Gypsies) from Austria, primarily from the Burgenland province, were deported to the ghetto. They were confined in a segregated block of buildings. -
"...begin mass deportation of over 300,000 Jews"
"Germans begin the mass deportation of over 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center." -
"Germans begin mass deportations of nearly 100,000 Jews from...Netherlands"
"Germans begin mass deportations of nearly 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to the east (primarily to Auschwitz)." -
Trocme's Protest of Jewish Round-ups
"André Trocmé, a committed pacifist, embarked on a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience against the authorities. Trocmé, who often preached against antisemitism, protested the mass roundup of Jews in Paris at the Velodrome d'Hiver in July 1942 in a public sermon on August 16, stating that “the Christian Church must kneel down and ask God to forgive its present failings and cowardice.” -
Germans occupied southern France
The unity and solidarity of the local population compelled the Vichy authorities to proceed with caution in the region. Sometimes Vichy police officials gave the villages informal warnings before conducting searches. This pattern changed, however, after the Germans occupied southern France in November 1942. -
Trocme Arrested
On February 13, 1943, French police arrested Pastors Trocmé and Theis, as well as the headmaster of the local primary school, Roger Darcissac, and interned them at a camp in Saint-Paul d'Eyjeaux, near Limoges. -
"German police raided a local secondary school"
"On June 29, 1943, the German police raided a local secondary school and arrested 18 students. The Germans identified five of them as Jews, and sent them to Auschwitz, where they died." -
"Rescue of Jews from Denmark"
"When German police began the roundup on the night of October 1, 1943, they found few Jews. In general, the Danish police authorities refused to cooperate, denying German police the right to enter Jewish homes by force, or simply overlooking Jews they found in hiding. Popular protests quickly came from various quarters such as churches, the Danish royal family, and various social and economic organizations." -
Daniel Trocme dies
In August 1943, Trocmé was sent to the detention camp in Compiègne in France; from there he was deported to the camp of Dora. In the beginning of 1944 he was taken in a “transport of the sick” to Majdanek, where he died in April 1944 of exhaustion and sickness. He was just thirty-four-years old. -
"Germans begin the mass deportation of about 440,000 Jews from Hungary"
In less than two months, nearly 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary in more than 145 trains. Most were deported to Auschwitz, but thousands were also sent to the border with Austria to be deployed at digging fortification trenches. By the end of July 1944, the only Jewish community left in Hungary was that of Budapest, the capital. -
D-Day
D-Day: Allied forces invade Normandy, France -
"Roger Le Forestier..arrested and...shot"
"Roger Le Forestier, Le Chambon's physician, who was especially active in helping Jews obtain false documents, was arrested and subsequently shot on August 20, 1944, in Montluc prison on orders of the Gestapo in Lyon." -
Paris Liberated
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Vivarais Plateau liberated by the Free French First Armored Division
The Vivarais Plateau was liberated by the Free French First Armored Division on September 2-3, 1944. -
"Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz camp complex"
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Adolf Hitler commits suicide
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Germany surrenders to the western Allies
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Foundation of Israel
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Righteous Among the Nations
On January 5, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized the Reverend André Trocmé and his wife, Magda, as Righteous among the Nations. 32 other residents of Le Chambon sur Lignon were awarded the title, and in 1998 Yad Vashem presented the village with a special diploma of honor in tribute of their humane conduct during the war.
