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Reichstag Speech
Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler gave a speech in the Reichstag, which is best known for the prediction he made that "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" would ensue if another world war were to occur. Neville Chamberlain broadcast this announcement to the nation at 11:15 a.m. on September 3. A British ultimatum demanding that Germany withdraw its troops from Poland had been delivered earlier that morning and expired at 11:00 without a reply. -
St. Louis Sets Sail
Under the command of Captain Gustav Schröder, St. Louis set sail from Hamburg to Havana, Cuba carrying 937 passengers, most of them Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution in Germany. Cuba's government refused to allow the ship to land. The United States and Canada were unwilling to admit the passengers. The St. Louis passengers were finally permitted to land in western European countries rather than return to Nazi Germany. 254 St. Louis passengers were killed in the Holocaust. -
German Invasion of Poland
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe. German forces broke through Polish defenses along the border and quickly advanced on Warsaw, the Polish capital. The “reason” given was that Russia had to come to the aid of its “blood brothers,” the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were trapped in territory that had been illegally annexed by Poland. Now Poland was squeezed from West and East—trapped between two behemoths. -
Britain and France Declare War
On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. -
Auschwitz Camp Established
The Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime. It included three main camps, all of which deployed incarcerated prisoners at forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. The camps were located approximately 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Upper Silesia, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland. -
Warsaw Ghetto Sealed
German authorities order the Warsaw ghetto in the to be sealed. It is the largest ghetto in both area and population, confining more than 350,000 Jews--30% of the city's population--in an area of about 1.3 square miles, or 2.4 percent of the city's total area. At times, before the deportations of July 1942 began, the actual population in Warsaw ghetto approached 500,000. -
Explosion of the SS Patria
Twenty-year-old Egon Weiss escaped to Palestine in November 1940 and survived the explosion of the refugee ship Patria. He was interned at the Athlit detainee camp. Weiss's friend made this drawing of the ship. While in Palestine, Weiss kept a diary describing his voyage on the Milos, the explosion of the Patria, his internment in Athlit and subsequent years in Jerusalem. -
Krakow Ghetto Established
From March 3–20, 1941, German authorities announce, establish, and seal a ghetto in Krakow, Poland. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews are forced to live within the ghetto boundaries, which are enclosed by barbed-wire fences and, in places, by a stone wall. A Jewish resistance movement existed in the Krakow ghetto from the time the ghetto was established in 1941. Its leaders focused underground operations initially on supporting education and welfare organizations. -
Operation Barbarossa
In accordance with previous agreements between SS and police and Wehrmacht representatives, German mobile units of Security Police and SD officials, called Einsatzgruppen, followed the frontline troops into the Soviet Union. RSHA chief Heydrich had tasked the Einsatzgruppen commanders with identifying, concentrating, and killing Jews, Soviet officials and other persons deemed potentially hostile to German rule in the east. -
Konvo Ghetto Sealed
German authorities seal off the Kovno ghetto, with approximately 30,000 Jewish inhabitants. The ghetto was in an area of small primitive houses and no running water. It had two parts, called the “small” and “large” ghetto, separated by Paneriu Street. Each ghetto was overcrowded, enclosed by barbed wire, and closely guarded. -
Soviet Prisoners of War in Minsk
Approximately 5.7 million Soviet army troops were captured by the Germans during World War II. Only roughly 930,000 Soviet POWs were held by the Germans as of January 1945. By the end of the war, the remaining 3.3 million prisoners, or around 57% of them, had perished. Soviet prisoners of war were the largest group of victims of Nazi racial policy, second only to the Jews. -
“Euthanasia” Killings
Hitler's request for a suspension of the T4 operation did not signal the end of the "euthanasia" death program. German healthcare personnel and medical professionals resumed the executions in August 1942, albeit with greater caution than before. Among the techniques employed were hunger, fatal injection, and purposeful disregard for critical illness. Approximately 70,000 people have been killed by German medical experts at euthanasia centers as of this writing. -
Jewish Badge
Reinhard Heydrich decrees that all Jews over six years of age in the Reich, Alsace, Bohemia-Moravia and the German–annexed territory of western Poland, are to wear yellow Star of David on their outer clothing in public at all times. The word "Jew" is to be inscribed inside the star in German or the local language. During the Nazi era, German authorities reintroduced the Jewish badge as a key element of their larger plan to persecute and eventually to annihilate the Jewish population of Europe. -
Occupation of Kiev
Kiev was one of the largest mass murders at an individual location during World War II. Before the war about 160,000 Jews resided in the city, comprising about 20 percent of Kiev's population. On September 29–30, 1941, SS and German police units murdered the Jewish population of Kiev at Babi Yar. In the months following the massacre, German authorities killed thousands more Jews as well as Roma (Gypsies), Communists, and Soviet prisoners of war. -
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was responsible for the murder of approximately 1.7 million Jews, most of them Polish Jews. The overwhelming majority of victims in the Operation Reinhard killing centers were Jews deported from ghettos in Poland. Deportations to Treblinka originated mainly from central Poland and from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Macedonia. Sobibor received transports from France and the Netherlands. -
Massacre in Fort IX
German SS and police units and Lithuanian police auxiliaries murder 9,200 residents of the Jewish ghetto in Kovno, Lithuania, in Fort IX on the edge of the city. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked and occupied Guam, Wake, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. Only in mid-1942 were Australian and New Zealander forces in New Guinea and British forces in India able to halt the Japanese advance. The turning point in the Pacific war came with the American naval victory in the Battle of Midway in 1942. -
U.S. Declares War on Japan
On December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt declared that the United States of America was attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.
"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941." -
Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
Heydrich was the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin. The RSHA was the SS and police agency most directly concerned with implementing the Holocaust. Czech agents parachuted into German-occupied Czech territory to assassinate Heydrich. In retaliation for the attack, the Germans unleashed a wave of terror against the Czechs. -
Japan Surrenders
World War II in the Pacific theater ended with the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945. The surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay aboard the American battleship USS Missouri. Foreign Minister Shigemitsu headed the Japanese delegation. General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender on behalf of the Allies. Admiral Nimitz signed for the US and Admiral Fraser for Britain. Representatives of all the Allied nations attended the signing.