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Hitler is Appointed Chancellor
Germany faced an economic crisis, having to pay war reparations at a time when most of the world was facing severe economic downturn. Hitler was a veteran, bitter about Germany's treatment, and with soldiers under metaphorical fire for their role in WWI, in his political preachings, he scapegoated the Jewish people. He painted himself as a saint, set on restoring Germany to its former glory. With that, the Treaty of Versailles Weimar Republic ended and Germany began anew under the Third Reich. -
Dachau, Germany
The first concentration camp used by the Nazi government was located in Southern Germany. Established in Dachau, from 1933 to 1938 the concentration camp held German citizens and politicians. However, following Kristallnacht, Dachau saw the first influx of Jewish incarcerated people. -
Kindertransport
Kindertransport was an immigration movement that ran for eleven months. Jewish children fled from their war-torn homes and took refuge in the UK. Many of the parents would never see their children again. Yet, anti-Semitism was alive in the UK, still. Families were torn apart because Jewish adults weren't trusted, entering the labor market to steal jobs from the British. Childhoods were tarnished, everywhere they turned - their homeland or Britain - they would be ostracized, they would be alien. -
Kristallnacht
The assassination of foreign office diplomat, Ernst vom Rath prompted Kristallnacht. Herschel Grynszpan shot vom Rath as the rest of his family was deported to an incarceration camp. "Night of Broken Glass" was a 48-hour pogrom across Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The Nazis encouraged riots outside businesses, apartment complexes, and synagogues. Silently passed legislation turned into national propaganda, and the violence at Kristallnacht turned into bloodshed during the Holocaust. -
The St. Louis
A German ship carried 937 passengers across the Atlantic from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba. Docking in Cuban waters was prohibited. America nor Canada would dock the ship without authorization. Upon its return, Western Europe each admitted a portion of the 937. Some were able to flee to America. However, its immigration system saw Jews as immigrants, not as refugees. Most who stayed in Europe either resided in a country that would fall to the Nazi regime or could not escape deportation. -
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
A Russian-German peace agreement went into effect. Right-wing Nazi Germany and left-wing Communist Soviet Union pledged to remain civil with one another for the next ten years. And in the time being, the two countries would expand their empires and continue to take what was rightfully theirs in Europe - dividing their spheres of influence. Less than two years later, however, Germany launched a military campaign to invade the Soviet Union following Lebensraum. -
Piotrków Trybunalski
The first neighborhood to become a ghetto was Piotrków Trybunalski. The ghettos were supposed to be a cruel overture to a neighborhood's liquidation and subsequent murder. However, a neighborhood's "ghettoization" would last from a few days to a few years. Many would become prisoners in their own homes, left to die of starvation, hypothermia, disease, or bullet wounds. -
The Wannsee Conference
Nazi party members and German government officials gathered and the term "Final Solution" was coined. The officials, upon gathering, would discuss how to "cleanse" the world of the Jewish race - being dubbed the "Final Solution." The Nazis' "Final Solution" would work in conjunction with their ideology of Lebensraum - essentially, Germany's sovereignty over the world. The "Final Solution" would preach their anti-Semitic message and Lebensraum would ensure it would not fall on deaf ears. -
Auschwitz-Birkenau
The concentration camp would have originally been a work camp for Soviet criminals, with the first influx of prisoners Auschwitz-Birkenau saw being 945 Soviet prisoners and a handful of Polish prisoners as well. However, its purpose would soon change, with six crematoria active Eliezer Wiesel had called Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and hundreds of others like this camp "factories of death." -
Liberation
As Soviet forces moved west, Jewish prisoners were evacuated. Freedom was within arm's reach. Nazis would find other vile tricks to play. Many would double over dead or at the hand of a Nazi during evacuation. The first major concentration camp liberated by the Allies was Majdanek. The true extent of Hitler's crimes was unveiled to a world that remained silent, to a world that turned away a nation of asylum seekers. The world will continue to advocate "never forget" for nearly 80 years.
