The Holocaust

By kaseyywardd

  • Adolf Hitler elected Chancellor of Germany

    On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand year Reich had started.

  • Dachau Opened

    The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress (where Hitler had written Mein Kampf during his imprisonment).

  • Boycott of Jewish Businesses

    Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, speaks at a rally in favor of the boycott of Jewish-owned shops. Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.

  • Nuremberg Laws

    The History Place - World War II in Europe Timeline: September 15, 1935 - The Nuremberg Race Laws. The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich.

  • Kristallnacht/The Night of Broken Glass

    A NATIONWIDE POGROM.
    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.

  • Germany Invades Poland

    The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion.

  • Auschwitz Concentration Camp Established

    Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners.

  • “Final Solution” begins

    After the invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941 the Nazi government began to conceive of a plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was the chief architect of the plan, which came to be called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

  • Liberation of Auschwitz

    As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was evacuated and sent on a death march. The prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on January 27, 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.