-
The Rise of Adolf Hitler (1933)
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, marking the beginning of the Nazi regime. Soon after taking power, the Nazis began implementing policies that targeted Jews and other minorities, blaming them for Germany’s economic problems and the loss of World War I. The Nazi regime passed laws to strip Jews of their civil rights, including the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. -
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)
Kristallnacht was a violent, state-sponsored pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria. Jewish homes and synagogues were vandalized and destroyed, with shattered glass littering the streets, giving the event its name. Around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. This event marked a turning point in Nazi persecution, transitioning from economic and social oppression to open violence, and signaled a more aggressive phase leading toward genocide. -
Invasion of Poland and the Start of WWII
Germany’s invasion of Poland not only sparked World War II but also expanded Nazi control over millions of Jews living in Eastern Europe. The occupation led to the creation of ghettos, where Jews were forcibly relocated, isolated, and subjected to starvation, disease, and violence. The largest of these was the Warsaw Ghetto. This phase also saw the beginning of mass shootings and the early formation of killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen, especially in occupied Soviet territories. -
The Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference, held in a suburb of Berlin, was where senior Nazi officials formalized plans for the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This plan called for the systematic deportation and extermination of all Jews in Europe. It marked a chilling bureaucratic shift from persecution and violence to industrial-scale genocide. Following this meeting, extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor were equipped for mass murder using gas chambers. -
Liberation of the Camps and the End of the Holocaust
As Allied forces advanced into Nazi-occupied territories in 1945, they began liberating concentration and extermination camps. Soldiers were met with scenes of unimaginable horror thousands of emaciated survivors and piles of corpses. Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets in January, while the Americans liberated camps like Buchenwald and Dachau later in the spring. The Holocaust ended with Nazi Germany’s defeat in May 1945, by which time six million Jews had been murdered.