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January 30th 1933 was the day when President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.
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It was opened in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler.
The photo is of a Memorial Site at the camp itself. -
The Gestapo, or the Secret State Police was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe.
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After President Paul von Hindenburg dies. With the support of the German armed forces, Hitler becomes President of Germany.
He died of lung cancer. -
They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP).
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The opening ceremony was August 1 and the closing ceremony was August 6.
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Vladek courts Anja. By 1936, they are engaged, and they marry on February 14, 1937.
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Actual day is unknown.
A few months later Anja has a nervous breakdown.
"It doesn't mater...nothing matters."
"Why are you crying?"
"I don't know! I have a good family...a fine son...I should be happy...
But I don't care. I JUST DON'T WANT TO LIVE." -
"Right away, we went. The sanitarium was inside Czechslovakia, one of the most expensive and beautiful in the world." They boarded the train in the beginning of 1938.
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"One fellow told us of his cousin what was living in Germany, he had to sell his business to a German and run out from the country without even the money.
It was very hard there for the Jews-terrible! Another fellow told us of a relative in Brandenberg--the police came to his house and no one heard again from him.
It was many, many such stories--synagogues burned, Jews beaten with no reason, whole towns pushing out all Jews--each story worse than the other." -
On November 9–10, 1938, the Nazis staged violent pogroms—state sanctioned, anti-Jewish riots—against the Jewish communities of Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland.
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Actual day unknown.
"We were all digged into trenches near a river. On the other side it was Germans." -
German soldiers overcame the polish soldiers which were forced to surrender and were taken prisoner. Which led to Vladek taken prisoner.
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They were put to work and used as slaves for the Germans.
"Show me your hands! You never worked a day in your life!"
"Like you, Artie, my hands were always very delicate."
"Well, Jew, don't worry. We'll find work for you!"
"And they did." -
Britain declares war on Germany.
On September 1, 1939 German troops swarmed across the Polish border and unleashed the first Blitzkrieg the world had seen. -
In the town of Sosnowiec, the Great Synagogue was burned down. Along with many other important buildings that meant a lot to the Jews.
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On this day in 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact—the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland.
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The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, or the 1939 Defensive War in Poland. The German invasion went from the first of September to about the sixth of October 1939.
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Actual day unknown. Month is an estimate.
"The S.S. closed off the whole street to inspect the working papers from everyone, I didn't know about this. I managed to disappear into a building. But they took 50% of the people away." -
It consisted of Auschwitz I (the original camp), Auschwitz II–Birkenau (a combination concentration/extermination camp), Auschwitz III–Monowitz (a labor camp to staff an IG Farben factory), and 45 satellite camps.
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The first known record of an order for the establishment of the ghetto, dated 10 December 1939.
Jews were formally sealed within the ghetto walls on 1 May 1940. -
An SS medical officer selects weak, sick, and “unfit” prisoners from the isolation ward. These prisoners are put onto a truck and taken to a bunker, where they are killed with Zyklon B. Between May 1940 and January 1945, camp authorities kill more than one million people at Auschwitz.
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Also known as "Death Factory."
Auschwitz was known to be the largest death camp during the Holocaust.
It was established in 1940 May 20th. -
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941.
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The first experimental gassing with Zyklon B took place at Auschwitz I on September 3, 1941 in the cellar of Block 11 using 600 Soviet POWs and 250 other prisoners who were sick and no longer able to work.
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After Adolf Hitler's authorization in September 1941, German authorities began deporting German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the Greater German Reich to ghettos, shooting sites, concentration camps, and killing centers.
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Many Jews tried to escape from the ghettos in the hope of finding a place to hide outside of it. When this proved difficult escapees often returned to the ghetto on their own. If caught, Germans would murder the escapees and leave their bodies in plain view as a warning to others.
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"For a couple months I did here still my black market business. Then came more bad news, very bad..."
"They've taken four Jews away for dealing goods without coupons. The Germans intend to make an example of them!"
The next day I walked over to Modrzejowska street and I saw them... They hanged there one full week. -
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan.
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Date and month unknown.
Vladek and Anja sent Richieu to stay with an aunt in Zawiercie, with whom they believed he would be safe. -
In the beginning of 1942, the liquidation of the Polish ghettos started, and the Jews were sent to extermination camps, where they were gassed to death.
The first large ghetto, the one in Lodz, was also the last to be liquidated. -
The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. At some still undetermined time in 1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder.
(Photo: Wannsee Villa) -
Actual day is unknown.
The time comes when the Germans announce that all the elderly are to be shipped off to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. The notice makes Theresienstadt sound like a pleasant convalescent home. Vladek and his wife’s family, the Zylberbergs, hide the elderly grandparents, but the Germans threaten to take the entire family if the grandparents don’t go, so they reluctantly let the grandparents go. -
It was notified to all Jews that they were to go to Dienst Stadium to register themselves. No matter what age, gender or health. After this they were sent to camps.
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"People were afraid to not show up.
So it came to the stadium almost al the Jews of Sosnowiec, and from the other villages near, maybe 25 or 30,000 people."
Many were sent to Auschwitz including Vladek's father and his sister Fela with her four children. -
Around October 1942 - January 1943 the ghetto was moved to the Środula district.
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The Germans renew deportations from the Warsaw ghetto. This time however, they encounter resistance from the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization; Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa).
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Actual day unknown,
"The Jews in Sosnowiec are moved to a village called Srodula. Every day they are marched back to Sosnowiec to work in the shops and factories there. Anja and her sister Tosha work in a clothing factory, while Vladek and his nephew Lolek work in a woodwork shop." -
Actual day is an estimate.
When it is clear that the remaining Jews in Sosnowiec are going to be deported to Auschwitz, Tosha leaves with her children and Richieu to the home of an uncle, Persis, who is able to survive in another town because he has bribed the German soldiers there. When it is clear that the Jews in this town are also going to be shipped to the concentration camps, Tosha kills her children and Richieu as well as herself. -
Under pressure from parliament, churches, and humanitarian organizations, the British Foreign Office, on Jan. 20, 1943, proposed joint consultation between Britain and the U.S.A. to examine the problem and possible solutions.
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Actual day is unknown.
The Sosnowiec Ghetto set up in World War II by Nazi German authorities for Polish Jews in the Province of Upper Silesia during the Holocaust was liquidated during Aktionen lasting from June until August 1943. -
Aktion Erntefest (German: for Operation Harvest Festival) was the World War II mass shooting action by the SS conducted at the Majdanek concentration camp and its subcamps. The operation took place on 3 November 1943. Approximately 43,000 Jews were killed.
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Near the end of 1943 Anja and Vladek find out about Richieu.
"It was also around this time that we heard first the bad news from Zawiercie--about Tosha and Richieu. -
Date is an estimate.
"The Germans took from Srodula to Auschwitz over 1,000 people."
"By the end of 1943 the vans went every Wednesday with more and more and more people from Srodula to Auschwitz. Until it was very few." -
Vladek and Anja hide in multiple places with friends of theirs. Hiding inside cellars, sheds, a closet, and anywhere that will keep them alive as much as possible.
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(Day and month unknown)
On their way to Hungary they are found and captured by Nazis. Immediately they're sent off to Auschwitz.
"And we came here to the concentration camp Auschwitz, and we knew that from here we will not come out anymore. We knew the stories--that they will gas us and throw us in ovens. This was 1944...we knew everything. And here we were." -
General Dome Sztojay committed Hungary to continuing the war effort and cooperated with the Germans in the deportation of Hungarian Jews, the last intact Jewish community in occupied Europe.
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"Vladek started working as a tinman in Auschwitz in the spring of 1944."
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When Hungary joined the war against the Allies, nearly 20,000 Jews from Kamenetz-Podolsk who held Polish or Soviet citizenship were turned over to the Germans and murdered.
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The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion by and establishment of Western Allied forces in Normandy, during Operation Overlord in 1944 during World War II; the largest amphibious invasion to ever take place.
(Photo: Landing supplies at Normandy) -
Theresienstadt concentration camp, also referred to as Theresienstadt Ghetto, was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín, located in occupied part of the Czech Republic, called Sudeten.
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The Sonderkommando were Jewish prisoners who worked the death camps in return for special treatment and privileges.
On October 7th, 1944, at about 3 in the afternoon, the Poles in Crematorium 1 begin the revolt. -
Vladek talks about the Sonderkommando and how they revolted against the Nazis, managed to blow up a crematorium and kill guards.
He also talks about the woman who sneaked over the ammunition for this, they hanged them near his workshop. And also how apparently they were friends of Anjas. -
Actual day is unknown.
In order to arrange for Anja to be transferred to Auschwitz, Vladek saves food and cigarettes to bribe the guards. -
The furnaces, chimney, and some of the walls were demolished, and the openings in the roof through which the SS poured Zyklon B were plastered.
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The prisoners that were taken from the camps were sent on what became known as "Death Marches".
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"All night I heard shooting. He who got tired, who can't walk so fast, they shot."
“They marched us through the city of Bielsko. We passed by the factory what once I owned … We passed the market where always we bought to eat, and passed even the street where we used to live, and we came ‘til the prison, and there they put us.” -
The camps were liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945.
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Adolf Hitler killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva committed suicide with him by taking cyanide.
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Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.
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Actual day and month unknown.
Vladek speaks briefly about going from Poland to Sweden as refugees.
"So don't worry. Let the plane crash--at least we'll be out from Poland!" -
Born in Stockholm, Sweden.
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She left no note.
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Actual day is unknown.
In Part II, Art and Françoise are vacationing in Vermont. Vladek calls to tell them Mala has left him, so they go visit Vladek in the Catskills.
Art uses the visit as an opportunity to record more of Vladek’s story. -
"Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what is, friends!"
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Actual day unknown.
Spiegelman struggled to find a publisher for a book edition of Maus, but after a rave New York Times review of the serial in August 1986, Pantheon Books published the first six chapters in a volume called Maus: A Survivor's Tale and subtitled My Father Bleeds History. -
They go on to have a daughter; Nadja.
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Actual date and month unknown. Publication was around 1991-92.
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Actual month and day unknown.
Art Spiegelman wins Pulitzer Prize in a category created for his graphical narrative.
