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Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. -
Nuremberg Race Laws
The Nuremberg Race Laws consisted of two pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. A special session of the Nazi-controlled Reichstag passed both laws at the Party’s rally in Nuremberg, Germany. These laws institutionalized many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology and provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. -
Decree on “Combating the Gypsy Plague”
This order directed authorities in Nazi Germany to enforce existing anti-Romani laws and to deport non-German Roma and Sinti. It also called for regular police raids on Romani communities and roundups of Roma and Sinti. Under this order, the authorities also rounded up non-Romani people living in a supposedly “Gypsy-like manner. -
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Opens
SS authorities open the Buchenwald concentration camp for male prisoners in east-central Germany. Together with its many satellite camps, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps established within German borders. Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until late 1943 or early 1944. -
Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life
On November 12, 1938, the German government issues the Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life (Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben). The decree bars Jews from operating retail stores, sales agencies, and from carrying on a trade. -
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. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, both Jewish and non-Jewish, fled the German advance hoping the Polish army could halt the German advance. But, after heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans within a month of the German attack. -
Operation Reinhard
The Operation Reinhard team was ultimately 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—Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka—were Jews deported from ghettos in occupied Poland. Once the killing centers were operational, German SS and police forces liquidated the ghettos and deported Jews by rail to those killing centers. -
Soviet Forces Liberate Auschwitz
The Soviet army enters Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz and liberates around 7,000 prisoners, most of whom are ill and dying. In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its subcamps. SS units forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began.