-
the revolt of the iron guard
On 21-23 January, the Iron Guard rose in revolt and tried to seize power in the country. The revolt was accompanied by anti-Jewish riots in Bucharest. Members of the Iron Guard, together with bands of thugs, rioters from the suburbs, and gypsies attacked Jewish neighborhoods, murdered 127 Jews, and destroyed and looted houses and shops -
Germans establish Treblinka concentration camp
To carry out the mass murder of Europe's Jews, the SS established killing centers devoted exclusively or primarily to the destruction of human beings in gas chambers. Treblinka was among these killing centers. It was one of three killing centers linked to Operation Reinhard, the SS plan to murder almost two million Jews living in the German-administered territory of occupied Poland, called the General Government. -
warsaw ghetto uprising
On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Jewish insurgents inside the ghetto resisted these efforts. This was the largest uprising by Jews during World War II and the first significant urban revolt against German occupation in Europe. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto residents to concentration camps and killing centers. -
D-Day: Allied invasion at Normandy
D-Day was the name given to the June 6, 1944, invasion of the beaches at Normandy in northern France by troops from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries during World War II. France at the time was occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany, and the amphibious assault—codenamed Operation Overlord—landed some 156,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day. -
Group of German officers attempt to assassinate Hitler
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg left a bomb in a briefcase near Hitler during a military briefing on the deteriorating military situation on the eastern front. In addition to disaffected military officers, the plot against Hitler involved traditional right-wing conservative politicians, police officials, and diplomats -
Evacuation of Auschwitz;
From January 17 to 21, the Germans marched approximately 56 thousand prisoners out of Auschwitz and its sub-camps in evacuation columns mostly heading west, through Upper and Lower Silesia. Two days later, they evacuated 2 thousand prisoners by train from the sub-camps in Świętochłowice and Siemianowice. The main evacuation routes led to Wodzisław Sląski and Gliwice, where the many evacuation columns were merged into rail transports -
Death march of inmates of Buchenwald
Near the end of the war, when Germany's military force was collapsing, the Allied armies closed in on the Nazi concentration camps. The Soviets approached from the east, and the British, French, and Americans from the west. The Germans began frantically to move the prisoners out of the camps near the front and take them to be used as forced laborers in camps inside Germany. -
Hitler commits suicide
As Soviet forces near his command bunker in central Berlin on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Berlin falls to the Soviets within days.