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Reichstag Speech
JANUARY 30, 1939
Amid rising international tensions Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry. Inspired by Hitler's theories of racial struggle and the supposed "intent" of the Jews to survive and expand at the expense of Germans, the Nazis ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation. -
Deportations from Lodz to Chelmno
German authorities begin the deportation of Jews from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center. Between December 1941 and March 1943 and again in June–July 1944, at least 167,000 Jews and approximately 4,300 Roma (Gypsies) are killed at Chelmno. The majority of victims are Jews deported from the Lodz ghetto and other smaller ghettos in the surrounding region. The Jews of Lodz formed the second largest Jewish community in prewar Poland, after Warsaw. -
Liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto
From March 13–16, 1943, SS and police authorities liquidate the Krakow ghetto. During the operation the SS kill approximately 2,000 Jews in the ghetto and transfer another 2,000 Jews, the members and families of the Jewish council, and the Krakow ghetto police force to Plaszow. The SS and Police transport approximately 3,000 more Krakow Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the camp authorities select 549
for forced labor. The rest, approximately 2,450 people, are murdered in the gas chambers -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
German forces intended to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto beginning on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. When SS and police units entered the ghetto that morning, the streets were deserted. Nearly all of the residents of the ghetto had gone into hiding, as the renewal of deportations of Jews to death camps triggered an armed uprising within the ghetto. Though vastly outnumbered and outgunned, individuals and small groups of Jews hid or fought the Germans for almost a month. -
Identity Card Used in Hiding
Identity card issued on August 3, 1943 in the name of Roman-Paul Mytka. Kurt I. Lewin, who was Jewish, used this card while in hiding in a Ukrainian Greek Catholic monastery in German-occupied Poland (today Ukraine). Abbot Klymentii Sheptytsky helped him obtain the forged papers and found him a place in a monastery on the outskirts of Lwów (Lviv). There, a monk taught him Catholic prayers and customs. The monk also taught him Ukrainian, which Lewin did not speak. -
Kielce Pogrom
“blood libel”)—with the intent of discouraging the return of Jewish Holocaust survivors to Poland. While the pogrom was not an isolated instance of anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland, the Kielce massacre convinced many Polish Jews that they had no future in Poland after the Holocaust and spurred them to flee the country. Coming just one year after the end of World War II, the massacre shocked people around the world. -
Nuremberg Trial Verdicts
the end, 12 defendants were sentenced to death, among them Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hans Frank, Alfred Rosenberg, and Julius Streicher. They were hanged, cremated in Dachau, and their ashes dropped in the Isar River. Hermann Goering, second only to Hitler in the Nazi regime, escaped the hangman's noose by committing suicide before his execution. The IMT sentenced three defendants to life imprisonment and four to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years -
Displaced Persons Act
The United States Congress passes the Displaced Persons Act, under which approximately 400,000 displaced persons could immigrate to the United States over and above quota restrictions. US officials will issue around 80,000 of the DP visas to Jewish displaced persons.