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The first official Nazi concentration camp opens in Dachau, a small village located near Munich (note: some "wild camps" already existed before 1933: Papenburg, Esterwegen, Börgermoor etc...). The first commandant of Dachau is Theodor Eicke. -
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Hitler proclaims himself Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Reich Chancellor). Armed forces must now swear allegiance to him -
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"Nuremberg Laws": first anti-Jewish racial laws enacted; Jews no longer considered German citizens; Jews could not marry Aryans; nor could they fly the German flag. -
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Germans march into the Rhineland, previously demilitarized by the Versailles Treaty. -
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Buchenwald concentration camp opens -
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17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany expelled; Poles refused to admit them; 8,000 are stranded in the frontier village of Zbaszyn. -
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Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland; 200 synagogues destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen). -
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All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools -
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One billion mark fine levied against German Jews for the destruction of property during Kristallnacht -
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Beginning of World War II: Germany invades Poland. In the following weeks, 16.336 civilians are murdered by the Nazies in 714 localities. At least 5,000 victims were Jews. -
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Jews in German-occupied Poland forced to wear an arm band or yellow star. -
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Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France -
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Dozens thousands of Russian and Jews are murdered by the Einsatzgruppen (extermination squads) in the occupied territories. -
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Establishment of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) for the extermination of Jews; Gypsies, Poles, Russians, and others were also murdered at the camp. -
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Deportation of Jews from Germany, Greece and Norway to killing centers; Jewish partisan movement organized in forests near Lublin. -
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Germans establish Treblinka concentration camp Summer Deportation of Jews to killing centers from Belgium, Croatia, France, the Netherlands, and Poland; armed resistance by Jews in ghettos of Kletzk, Kremenets, Lachva, Mir, and Tuchin. -
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Armed resistance by Jews in Bedzin, Bialystok, Czestochowa, Lvov, and Tarnow ghettos -
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Last Jews deported from Terezin to Auschwitz. -
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Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews; by June 27, 380,000 sent to Auschwitz -
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D-Day: Allied invasion at Normandy. -
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Beginning of death march of approximately 40,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria. -
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Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of death march -
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Beginning of death march for inmates of Stutthof -
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V-J Day: Victory over Japan proclaimed -
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Japan surrenders; end of World War II