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1930's
Hitler and the Nazi party are telling the world that "Jews are a diseased race." -
October 4, 1934
Lola was born. -
November 9, 1938
A German officer is killed in Paris by a Jew. Sets off a backlash known as the Night of Broken Glass -
Summer 1939
Czortkow starts having rolling blackouts. All the streetlights are turned off, and Jews tape black paper over the windows so German bombers can not see them when flying overhead. -
September 1, 1939
Hitler invades Poland where 3.3 million Jews live. England and France declare war on Germany. This is the beginning of World War II. -
September 1939
Lola is free to walk around the marketplace with her mother. The Russian soldiers arrive. -
September 17, 1939
The Russians take over the town of Czortkow. -
1941
Hitler comes up with a plan to execute all of Europe's Jews. It is called the Final Solution. -
Spring 1941
Lola is six and a half and is going to nursery school at her father's cousin's house. There are about a dozen other kids there too. -
July 6, 1941
It was a Sunday, the Germans arrived in town marching with guns and tanks, wearing goggles, tall black boots, and leather jackets. -
April 1942
The Jews in Czoortkow are confined to a ghetto, a series of streets and buildings where Jews must live. You must have proper papers to leave the ghetto. -
Summer 1942
Lola's dad dies at home. -
August 26-27, 1942
The first "action" comes, for Germans, it means a day set aside for rounding up huge numbers of Jews and sending them by train to the concentration camps. Lola, her mother, and her grandmother hide in a narrow space between a storage area wall and a wall of another apartment building next door. -
March 21,1943
Today is Purim, a Jewish holiday. Lola's mother, a cousin, and 2 other women are killed by a German soldier, Kurt Kollner, enacting revenge for another German soldier going into his territory and "shooting his Jews". -
May 1943
A few months after Lola's mother is killed, Babcia takes Lola aside right before bed, explaining she will be sneaking out of the ghetto that night. Babcia does not go with Lola. Tekla picks Lola up at the bridge.