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Thomas Doeppner was born in Berlin (Germany):
Thomas Doeppner (my chosen Holocaust victim) was born during this year in Berlin (Germany). Son of a Jewish woman (Ella) and a non-Jewish man (August). -
Appointment of Hitler as chancellor of Germany:
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. -
Reichstag Fire Decree:
Declaration of the state of emergency and suspension of civil liberties. -
Dachau Concentration Camp opened:
Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on this date. -
Enabling Act
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First boycotts of Jewish businesses
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Approval of Civil Service Law:
It removed Jews and political opponents of the Nazis from civil service positions and government jobs. -
Approval of the Education Law:
It stated that Jewish students could not be more than 5% of the student population of any public school or university, being forced to leave public schools. -
Approval of the Sterilization Law:
It allowed the Government to forcibly sterilize people with physical or mental disabilities not to have children. -
Approval of the Press Censorship Law
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Adolf Hitler, proclaimed “Führer”
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Nazi Germany instituted the Nuremberg Race Laws and persecuted Thomas Doeppner:
The Nazi Germany persecuted Thomas Doeppner as he was classified as a "Mischling" (someone who was of a "mixed race"). -
Approval of the mandatory military service
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Prohibition of Jehovah’s witness organization
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Reinforcement of the prohibition of activities qualified as “homosexual”, being excluded of being accounted as German population
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Approval of the Laws of Nuremberg
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Thomas Doeppner illegally entered the Netherlands to live with his father (who had moved there from the Nazi Germany):
When Tom's parents divorced his dad moved from Nazi Germany to Amsterdam. In the summer of 1938 (afraid that he would be drafted into the German military); Thomas illegally entered the Netherlands to live with his father. -
Tom wrote to the AFSC (Quaker aid organization), for help escaping to safety.
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Annexation of Austria
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Jewish Name Law:
It forced the Jews who did not have a Jewish first name to take the middle names “Israel” for men and “Sara” for women. -
Sudetenland, ceded to Germany
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Polish Jews deported from Germany
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Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"):
On November 9–10, 1938, Nazi Party officials set off a series of violent pogroms against Jews in Germany and Austria. This event came to be known as the Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass". The name "Kristallnacht" is a reference to the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets during and after the riot. -
The AFSC helped Tom obtain a scholarship to McPherson College, Kansas. He was still gathering his visa paperwork in September 1939, when WWII began in Europe:
After the Kristallnacht attacks in November 1938, students at more than 200 American colleges and universities raised money to help refugee students. The AFSC then helped Tom obtain a scholarship to McPherson College. Tom was still gathering his visa paperwork in 1939, when WWII began in Europe. -
Germany annexed Czechoslovakia
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German-Soviet Pact of Non-Aggression
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Germany invaded Poland:
This set up the Beginning of the World War II. -
Approval of the Euthanasia Decree or “Operation T-4”:
It would cause 250,000 deaths. -
Tom obtained a ticket for the SS Pennland and he made it to Kansas before the spring 1940 semester began:
Although the war meant fewer passenger ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean, Tom finally obtained the ticket for the SS Penland and made it to Kansas before 1940 spring. -
Germany invaded Norway and Denmark
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Germany invaded Western Europe
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Italy declared war on Britain and France
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First prisoners arrive at Auschwitz
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Axis alliance (Germany, Italy and Japan) is definteliy formed
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Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece
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Germany invaded the Soviet Union
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Jewish badge, mandatory for Jewish population
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Pearl Harbor attack by Japan:
USA entered into the World War II. -
Mass murder began at Chelmno, the first stationary facility where the Nazis used poison gas for mass murder
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Wannsee Conference:
Approval of mass murder of Jews (“Final Solution”). -
Beginning of “Operation Reinhard”:
Name of the plan to murder approximately two million of Jews in German-occupied Poland. -
Allied forces invaded North Africa:
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Allies condemned in an official declaration the mass murder:
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German defeat at Stalingrad
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First transport of Gypsies to Auschwitz
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Beginning of the Warsaw ghetto uprise
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Invasion of Sicily by Allied forces
The Allied invasion of Sicily was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily that began on the night of 9-10 July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers (Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany). -
Surrender of Italy
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Thomas graduated in 1944 and joined the US army as interpreter, interrogating Germans captured by the Allies
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Tom's mum (Ella) was deported from Berlin to Theresienstdat (concentration camp):
She had managed to avoid deportation for so long as she was married to a non-Jewish man, but she survived the Holocaust. -
Germany occupied Hungary
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Beginning of the Normandy landings
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Liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops
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Liberation of Buchenwald by American troops
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Surrender of Germany:
End of the World War II in Europe.