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Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany.
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Period: to
The Holocaust
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The German government takes away freedom of speech, assembly, press, and freedom from invasion of privacy and from house search without warrant.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated President of the United States.
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The first concentration camp is established in Nazi Germany at Dachau. The first prisoners are political opponents.
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A nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany is carried out under Nazi leadership.
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Jews are barred from government service; Jewish civil servants, including University professors and school teachers, are fired from their positions.
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The law against "overcrowding in German schools and universities" is adopted, restricting the number of Jewish children allowed to attend. Children of war veterans and those with one non-Jewish parent are initially exempted.
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Books by Jews and opponents of Nazism are burned publicly.
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Laws are passed in Germany that permit the forced sterilization of Gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled, African-Germans, and others considered "inferior" or "unfit."
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Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
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Adolph Hitler declares himself president and chancellor of the Third Reich after the death of Paul von Hindenburg.
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First major wave of arrests of homosexuals occurs throughout Germany, continuing into November.
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The Saar region is annexed by Germany.
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Hitler violates the Versailles Treaty by renewing the compulsory military draft.
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Jehovah's Witnesses are banned from all civil service jobs and are arrested throughout Germany.
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"No Jews" signs and notices are posted outside German towns and villages, and outside shops and restaurants.
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Jews are prohibited from serving in the German armed forces.
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The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of their citizenship.
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Jewish doctors are no longer permitted to practice in government institutions in Germany.
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Hitler's army invades the Rhineland.
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The first German Gypsies are arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp.
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The Olympic Games take place in Berlin. Anti-Jewish signs (i.e., "Jews Not Welcome") are removed until the Games are completed.
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The Ministry of Science and Education prohibits teaching by "non-Aryans" in public schools and bans private instruction by Jewish teachers.
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Further restrictions are imposed on the number of Jewish students attending German schools.
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Buchenwald concentration camp opens.
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Jews can obtain passports for travel outside of Germany only in special cases.
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Germany annexes Austria.
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The German government passes a decree requiring the registration of all Gypsies without a fixed address living in Austria; by June 1938, all Gypsy children above the age of 14 have to be fingerprinted. This is a central part of the growing racial definiti
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Five thousand Austrian Gypsies from the Lódz ghetto are deported to the killing center at Chelmno where they are all killed in mobile gas vans.
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Gypsy and African-German children are expelled from public schools.
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The German army invades North Africa.
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The German army invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
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Romania passes law condemning adult Jews to forced labor.
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The French Vichy government revokes civil rights of French Jews in North Africa.
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The German army invades the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads, begin the mass murders of Jews, Gypsies, and Communist leaders.
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German Jews above the age of six are forced to wear a yellow Star of David sewed on the left side of their clothes with the word "Jude" printed in black.
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Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners are killed in Nazi test of gas chambers at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
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Nearly 34,000 Jews are murdered by mobile killing squads at Babi Yar, near Kiev in the Ukraine.
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Construction begins on Birkenau, an addition to the Auschwitz camp. Birkenau includes a killing center which begins operations in early 1942.
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First group of German and Austrian Jews are deported to ghettos in eastern Europe.
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Five thousand Gypsies are deported from labor and internment camps in Austria to the Lódz ghetto in Poland.
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Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
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The Chelmno death camp opens near Lódz, Poland and the first gassing of victims in mobile gas vans occurs.
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Germany declares war on the United States.
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Jews in the Lódz ghetto are deported to the killing center at Chelmno.
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Fifteen Nazi and government leaders meet at Wannsee, a section of Berlin, to discuss the "final solution to the Jewish question".
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Nazi "extermination" camps located in occupied Poland at Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Majdanek-Lublin begins mass murder of Jews in gas chambers.
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Approximately ten thousand Jews, who had arrived in the Lódz ghetto some six months earlier from Germany, Luxembourg, Vienna, and Prague, are deported to Chelmno. Their baggage is confiscated before they board the train.
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The German government closes all Jewish schools.
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Treblinka death camp opens.
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Jews in France and the Netherlands are required to wear identifying Stars of David.
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Jewish fighting organizations established in the Warsaw ghetto.
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Approximately fifteen thousand Jews in the Lódz ghetto are deported to Chelmno, mostly children under ten and individuals over sixty-five, but also others who are too weak or ill to work. By September 16, approximately fifty-five thousand Jews have been d
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All Jews in concentration camps in Germany are sent to death camp at Auschwitz.
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A special internment camp for non-Jewish Polish youth is opened in Lódz.
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All Gypsies in Germany and Nazi occupied countries, with few exceptions, are arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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16 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto initiate resistance to deportation by the Germans to the death camps.
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The Nazis order all of the ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union destroyed.
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The inmates at Treblinka rebel.
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The Danish citizens smuggle most of the nation's Jews to neutral Sweden.
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The War Refugee Board is established by President Franklin Roosevelt.
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The German army invades Hungary.
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The Nazis begin deportation of Hungarian Jews. Over 430,000 Jews are sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where most are gassed.
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The Allied Powers invade Normandy.
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Seven thousand one hundred ninety-six Jews are deported from the Lódz ghetto to Chelmno where they are killed.
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German officers fail and are caught in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.
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The Soviet Army liberates the Majdanek death camp.
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The prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebel and blow up one crematorium.
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Nazis empty Auschwitz and start prisoners on "death marches" to Germany.
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The Soviet army liberates Auschwitz.
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Troops from the United States liberate survivors from the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
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Adolph Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin rather than be caught by the advancing Soviet army.
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Troops from the United States liberate Mauthausen concentration camp.
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Germany surrenders and war in Europe is ended.
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The war crimes tribunal is convened at Nuremberg, Germany.
