Vladeks Holocaust Timeline (dates are not perfectly accurate)

  • Realization

    Realization
    Anja undergoes depression after giving birth to her son, Richieu. Vladek and Anja go to Czechoslovakia and stay in a luxurious sanitarium. On the way, they see Nazi flags flying.
  • Draft Day

    Draft Day
    The Polish army drafted Vladek to fight.
  • Captured

    Captured
    Vladek gets captured as a POW for six weeks. He volunteered to do Nazi assignments while they were out fighting. These jobs gave him the upper hand in survival. One night in the camp, Vladek dreams of his grandfather telling him he will be set free on Parshas Truma. The prophecy comes true and he gets released on Parshas Truma.
  • Savior... Mr.Ilzecki

    Vladek was on the way to see Mr.Ilzecki. When he arrived he saw something "terrible". Jews were being captured by the Gestapo and Vladek gets flustered not knowing what to do. Mr.Ilzecki hides Vladek in his very fancy house.
  • Black Market

    Black Market
    Vladek finds a way to source food through the black market. Some of the black market businessmen were publicly hung by the Nazis, leaving Vladek feeling remorsefull.
  • Poison

    Poison
    While Vladek and Richieu are separated, Tosha poisons herself and Richieu. The reason behind the action was that she was saving them from the horrifying gas chambers.
  • In hiding

    In hiding
    Vladek and Anja realize more Jews are being sent away to camps. They hide with other family members to avoid being sent to the camps. They bribe smugglers to take them on a train out of Poland into Hungary, but the smugglers turn them over to the Germans.
  • Mauschwitz

    Mauschwitz
    After being ratted out by the smuggler, Vladek and Anja are sent to Auschwitz. They believed this was the last time they would see each other. Artie also discovers that Vladek burned Anja's diaries, so he does not have her side of the story to write about.
  • Empty pockets and new striped clothes

    Vladek and Anja were separated for the first time. The S.S. took all their clothes, papers, and anything of value. The reader then learns that Vladek got sent to the group that they will not kill yet, but they work them.
  • Shoemaker?

    Shoemaker?
    While fighting to stay alive, Vladek learns that he can craft shoes for the S.S guards. This unique ability he has gains him leverage and the guards give him food in return.
  • Carepackage backfires

    Carepackage backfires
    Vladek used his leverage to arrange for Anja to get into one of the new women's barracks being built in his camp. On arrival, Vladek sent Anja care packages of food. Anja soon got caught getting packages by a kapo. She got away and hid in the barracks. No one in the barracks would fess up about who did it, and they all got worked to near death as a punishment.
  • A new friend

    A new friend
    Vladek meets a french man that recieves care packages from his family with a cornocopia of food. The frenchman insisted that Vladek took some.
  • "Troubles Begin"

    "Troubles Begin"
    The Russians began closing in on Auschwitz, so the Germans evacuated the prisoners to a camp inside of Germany. The train ride there is excruciating. Bodies upon bodies lumped into train carts, starving, suffocating, and dehydrated. Vladek manages to build a hammock. The hammock allowed him to get room to breath and eat the now out the window to hydrate. The train is also infested in typhus infected lice.
  • Lice

    Lice
    The typhus carrying lice on the train infected Vladek. The sickness took a major toll on him. He truly began to think he would die.
  • Freedom?!

    The prisoners got on a train (with no guards) and traveled for thirty minutes until they stopped. They all ran in different directions until a Wehrmacht Patrol stopped them. They went to bed surrounded by guards, expecting to get killed at any moment. They then woke up to be alone, with no guards in sight. Freedom?
  • Shivek!

    Vladek finds his old friend, Shivek, while waiting to be freed.
  • Freedom?! pt.2

    The prisoners ran and hid in every direction. Vladek ended up at a farm, but soon after arrival, another German patrol caught them and wound them up in a barn. The following day, another miracle happened... the soldiers were gone!
  • Gluttony

    Gluttony
    Vladek and his friend Shivek found a house with clothes, chickens, cows, and milk! Shivek was a farm boy who used the chickens and cows to make daily food. After the awful food their diet consisted of in the camps, the food gave their stomach a "shock," and they both became sick.
  • Anja, Anja, my Anja

    Anja, Anja, my Anja
    After eating well, although it tore up his stomach, the Americans finally came. Vladek and Shivek parted ways, and Vladek went home to have Anja in his arms, and they lived "happy ever after."
  • Land of the Free

    Land of the Free
    Vladek and his family move to the U.S