Holocaust Timeline

Paul Von Hindenburg called Hitler to the chancellorship of Germany. Within one month, the Reichstag (Germany's Parliament) building burned and Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree. This authorized Hitler to suspend all civil rights and arrest and execute any suspicious person January 30

Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in as U.S. president at his first inauguration. At right are James Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. At this time, the economic situation in the United States was desperate, with between 13 and 15 million Americans out of work. During the weeks and months that followed, Roosevelt developed an ambitious relief program that came to be known as the "New Deal." 1933 March 4

A passerby looks on as a Nazi storm trooper plasters a display window with signs urging German citizens not to buy from Jews Nazi campaign against Jews included physical assault, economic boycotts, the expulsion of Jews from professions and the civil service, the exclusion of Jews from movie theaters and recreational facilities, and laws against marriage and sexual relations with "Aryans." Virulent propaganda scapegoated Jews as the source of all of Germany's problems April 1

Thousands of books smolder in a huge bonfire as Germans give the Nazi salute during the wave of book-burnings that spread throughout Germany May

The first known Nazi act against homosexuals was marked by the murder of Ernst Rohm: "The Night of the Long Knives." Hitler knew of Rohm's homosexuality since 1919, and the two were close friends for fifteen years. During that time, Rohm rose to SA Chief of Staff, transforming the brownshirt militia into "an effective fighting force five hundred thousand strong." 1934 June 30

The Reich Flag Law makes red, white and black the official national colors and makes the swastika flag (the flag of the Nazi Party) the national flag September

While running in the Berlin Olympics, Owens won four gold medals. He also set four Olympic records and tied and set two world records. Adolf Hitler's campaign to prove to the world the superiority of the Aryan race was invalidated single-handedly by Owens, as was the previous American record for the number of track and field records broken in a single Olympics August

Chief American Delegate Myron Taylor Hotel Royal in Evian-les Bains Site of the International Conference on Refugees Roosevelt, the president of the U.S., and a number of other nations called a conference to discuss the Jewish refugee problem. 32 nations arrived. But the unwritten fine print of the invitations said: "We are coming to try to figure out what to do for the Jews, but no nation will be asked to take any more Jews than its quota already allows." 1938 July

Kristallnacht: Nazi-orchestrated pogrom against German Jews. Thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses are looted and destroyed as police and firefighters stand by November 9

"Operation Weiss": German troops invade Poland. German tanks thundered across the Polish border at precisely 0445 hours. Adolf Hitler was working on the new kind of warfare "Blitzkrieg", Lightning War that involved massive use of tanks, motorized infantry and airforce. Tactics of Blitzkrieg designed new role for tanks, spearheads for quick penetration of enemy territory September 1

Seller of Jewish arm bands on the streets of Warsaw. All Polish Jews over the age of 10 must wear Identifying “Jewish Star” badges or bands November 23

Jewish Ghetto is Sealed: In Polish cities under Nazi occupation, like Warsaw and Lodes, Jews were confined in sealed ghettos where starvation, overcrowding, exposure to cold, and contagious diseases killed tens of thousands of people November 15

Zyklon-B Canisters Elderly men selected for gassing the artist Olère really was at Auschwitz First experimental gassings carried out at Auschwitz September 23

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 1941 December 7

Although the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was not really very successful, it was the first time in all of German- occupied Europe that there was any organized uprising against the Nazis. Word got out, and it set a climate. And afterwards, there was Jewish resistance in many other places, including some of the camps. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943 April 19 to May 16

Rescue of the Danish Jews 1943 October

Liberation of Camps begin at Majdanek-Lublin, Poland Last Camp, Bergen-Belsen, liberated 1944 July April 15

Nuremberg Trials, looking down on defendants dock, Front row, from left to right: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walther Funk, Hjalmar Schacht. Back row from left to right: Karl Doenitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Konstantin van Neurath, Hans Fritzsche October to November

Adolf Eichmann was largely unknown until Israeli President Ben Gurion, ascended the plinth of the Knesset (Parliament) and announced to the deputies that "the person responsible for the death of six million Jews, and their executioner" had been captured by commandos and that he would be judged by an Israeli tribunal May 28