Timeline of the Holocaust: 1933-1945
January 30
Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
March 22
Dachau concentration camp opens
April 1
Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses
April 7
Laws for Reestablishment of the Civil Service barred Jews from holding civil service, university, and state positions
April 26
Gestapo established
May 10
Public burning of books written by Jews, political dissidents, and others not approved by the state
July 14
Law stripping East European Jewish immigrants of German citizenship
August 2
Hitler proclaims himself Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Reich Chancellor). Armed forces must now swear allegiance to him
May 31
Jews barred from serving in the German armed forces
September 15
"Nuremberg Laws": anti-Jewish racial laws enacted; Jews no longer considered German citizens; Jews could not marry Aryans; nor could they fly the German flag
November 15
Germany defines a "Jew": anyone with three Jewish grandparents; someone with two Jewish grandparents who identifies as a Jew
March 3
Jewish doctors barred from practicing medicine in German institutions
March 7
Germans march into the Rhineland, previously demilitarized by the Versailles Treaty
June 17
Himmler appointed the Chief of German Police
July
Sachsenhausen concentration camp opens
October 25
Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis
July 15
Buchenwald concentration camp opens
March 13
Anschluss (incorporation of Austria): all antisemitic decrees immediately applied in Austria
April 26
Mandatory registration of all property held by Jews inside the Reich
July 6
Evian Conference held in Evian, France on the problem of Jewish refugees
August 1
Adolf Eichmann establishes the Office of Jewish Emigration in Vienna to increase the pace of forced emigration
August 3
Italy enacts sweeping antisemitic laws
September 30
Munich Conference: Great Britain and France agree to German occupation of the Sudetenland, previously western Czechoslovakia
October 5
Following request by Swiss authorities, Germans mark all Jewish passports with a large letter "J" to restrict Jews from immigrating to Switzerland
October 28
17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany expelled; Poles refused to admit them; 8,000 are stranded in the frontier village of Zbaszyn
November 7
Assassination in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan
November 9-10
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland; 200 synagogues destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen)
November 12
Decree forcing all Jews to transfer retail businesses to Aryan hands
November 15
All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools
December 12
One billion Marks fine levied against German Jews for the destruction of property during Kristallnacht
January 30
Hitler in Reichstag speech: "if war erupts it will mean the Vernichtung (extermination) of European Jews"
March 15
Germans occupy Czechoslovakia
August 23
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed: non-aggression pact between Soviet Union and Germany
September 1
Beginning of World War II: Germany invades Poland
September 21
Heydrich issues directives to establish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
October 12
Germany begins deportation of Austrian and Czech Jews to Poland
October 28
First Polish ghetto established in Piotrków
November 23
Jews in German-occupied Poland forced to wear an arm band or yellow star
April 9
Germans occupy Denmark and southern Norway
May 7
Lodz Ghetto (Litzmannstadt) sealed: 165,000 people in 1.6 square miles
May 10
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France
May 20
Concentration camp established at Auschwitz
June 22
France surrenders
August 8
Battle of Britain begins
September 27
Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis
November 16
Warsaw Ghetto sealed: ultimately contained 500,000 people
January 21-26
Anti-Jewish riots in Romania, led by the Iron Guard (Romanian fascist organization); hundreds of Jews butchered
February 1
German authorities begin rounding up Polish Jews for transfer to Warsaw Ghetto
March
Adolf Eichmann appointed head of the department for Jewish affairs of the Reich Security Main Office (Gestapo), Section IV B 4.
April 6
Germany attacks Yugoslavia and Greece; occupation follows
June 22
Germany invades the Soviet Union
July 31
Heydrich appointed by Göring to implement the "Final Solution"
September 1
German Jews required to wear yellow star of David with the word "Jude"
September 28-29
34,000 Jews massacred at Babi Yar outside Kiev
October
Establishment of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) for the extermination of Jews; Gypsies, Poles, Russians, and others were also murdered at the camp
December 7
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
December 8
Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp begins operations: 340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and Czechs murdered by April 1943
December 11
United States declares war on Japan and Germany
January 20
Wannsee Conference in Berlin: Heydrich outlines plan to murder Europe's Jews
March 17
Extermination begins in Belzec; by end of 1942 600,000 Jews murdered
May
Extermination by gas begins in Sobibor killing center; by October 1943, 250,000 Jews murdered
June
Jewish partisan units established in the forests of Byelorussia and the Baltic States
July 22
Germans establish Treblinka concentration camp
Summer
Deportation of Jews to killing centers from Belgium, Croatia, France, the Netherlands, and Poland; armed resistance by Jews in ghettos of Kletzk, Kremenets, Lakhva, Mir, Tuchin, and Weisweiz
Winter
Deportation of Jews from Germany, Greece and Norway to killing centers; Jewish partisan movement organized in forests near Lublin
January
German 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad (Volgograd)
March
Liquidation of Craców ghetto
April 19
Warsaw Ghetto revolt begins as Germans attempt to liquidate 70,000 inhabitants; Jewish underground fights Nazis until early June
May
Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. On May 16, 1943, SS and Police Chief Jurgen Stroop proclaimed, "180 Jews, bandits, and subhumans were destroyed. The Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no more."
June
Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union
Summer
Armed resistance by Jews in Bedzin, Bialystok, Czestochowa, Lvov, and Tarnów ghettos
Fall
Liquidation of large ghettos in Minsk, Vilna (Vilnius), and Riga
October 14
Armed revolt in Sobibor extermination camp
October-November
Rescue of the Danish Jewry
March 19
Germany occupies Hungary
May 15
Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews; by June 27, 380,000 sent to Auschwitz
June 6
D-Day: Allied invasion at Normandy
Spring/Summer
Red Army repels Nazi forces
July 20
Group of German officers attempt to assassinate Hitler
July 24
Russians liberate Majdanek killing center
October 7
Revolt by inmates at Auschwitz; one crematorium blown up
November
Last Jews deported from Theresienstadt (Terezin) to Auschwitz
November 8
Beginning of death march of approximately 40,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria
January 17
Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of death march
January 25
Beginning of death march for inmates of Stutthof
April 6-10
Death march of inmates of Buchenwald
April 30
Hitler commits suicide
May 8
V-E Day: Germany surrenders; end of Third Reich
August 6
Bombing of Hiroshima
August 9
Bombing of Nagasaki
August 15
V-J Day: Victory over Japan proclaimed.
September 2
Japan surrenders; end of World War II