Coordinating the Murder of Europe’s Jews

20 January 1942

When the so-called “Wannsee Conference” took place, the murder action directed against Europe’s Jews had already started and gathered momentum. Since late in autumn 1941 Jews living in Germany and Austria had been deported, among other destinations, to Riga and Minsk where a considerable quantity of them was shot dead on their arrival. The social marginalisation and expropriation of the Jews, their expulsion into exile, their deportation, their recruitment for forced labour and the murder committed against them had been intensified to such an extent as to render clearly visible the objective behind all these forms of oppression: to get rid of all Jews living in the German sphere of power.

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Pressure for Emigration – Ban on Emigration – Deportation

15th October 1941

On 15th October 1941 the Nazi regime started deporting Jews from Germany, Austria and the “Protectorate”, sending off about 1,000 Jewish residents on the first train transport from Vienna to Litzmannstadt. While it had become the norm that the trains terminated at ghettos like Lodz, Warsaw and Riga in 1941, the year 1942 saw new destinations such as Piaski, Izbica and Minsk add to the ‘ordinary’ schedule. Beginning with the summer of 1942, more and more transports were steering towards Theresienstadt, and Auschwitz came to be one of the most frequent destinations the trains were bound for as of autumn 1943.

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Babi Yar in the Ukraine – A Canyon serving for a Mass Grave

Late in September 1941

On 29th and 30th September 1941, members of Einsatzgruppe C (operational group C) joining forces with units of the Wehrmacht (German army) executed more than 30,000 Jews from Kiev and surroundings. Parts of the duty and guard men were recruited from Ukrainian volunteers. It was the greatest shooting action Nazi Germany had unleashed within the context of both, the war of conquest and annihilation she waged against the Soviet Union and the Holocaust.

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Establishment of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO): 1946 - 1952

December 15, 1946

On 15th December 1946 the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) – a United Nations (UN) agency – was founded. Its special role as UN organisation was taking care of all those individuals in Europe and Asia whom the Second World War had left homeless, the so-called Displaced Persons (DPs). The IRO treaded in the footsteps of the previous United Nations organisation responsible for the care of refugees, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

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The Kielce Pogrom

July 1946

In the summer of 1945, separate camps for Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) were established in the Western zones of occupied Germany and Austria. Whereas the repatriation policy as pursued by the Allies had resulted in the quick re-transfer of the DPs in general – whose numbers had come up to about nine million individuals right after liberation –, Jewish DPs “stuck” to the camps starting, with determination, a migration movement towards Palestine.

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The attack on the Soviet Union and the beginning of the German-Soviet War

22 June 1941

The morning of the 22 June 1941 saw the German Army (Wehrmacht) pass the country’s border and invade the USSR. Without officially declaring war, Germany started the armed conflict with the Soviet Union that had been prepared in secrecy under the cover name “Barbarossa undertaking” (Unternehmen Barbarossa). Germany missed the interim target of what she had imagined to be an express war, namely to decidingly crush the Soviet Union by late in 1941. Instead, Germany herself suffered defeat in the battle for Moscow in December 1941.

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The so-called “Zigeunerrastplatz Marzahn” is put up in Berlin

May 1936

Following Heinrich Himmler’s so-called “Auschwitz decree” passed on 16 December 1942, according to which all “gypsy half-breeds, Romanies gypsies and members of gypsy clans from the Balkan … are to be committed to a concentration camp”, Sinti and Roma came to be deported to concentration and extermination camps first from German and Austrian towns. More than 25,000 out of approximately 40,000 German and Austrian Sinti and Roma registered by administration offices were murdered. Estimates show fluctuations in numbers speaking of a minimum total of 300,000 and a maximum total of 500,000 Sinti and Roma who fell victim to genocide.

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Eichmann on Trial

Court proceedings were instituted in Jerusalem on 11th April 1961.

“I have not been but a loyal, neat, correct, industrious member of the SS and of the main office for security of the “Reich” – not but inspired by ideal feelings for my fatherland I had the honour to belong to. […] Having sat in judgement on myself conscientiously, I cannot but confess to me that I have been neither a murderer nor a mass murderer. […]

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Beginning of “Euthanasia” Action 14f13

April 1941

The political decision on “euthanasia”, the murder of mentally and physically ill persons, was taken in October 1939. Considering that Germany had attacked and invaded Poland in September, killings could and did take place, as of October, outside the territory of the "Reich" as well. Accordingly, an approximate total of 70,000 persons had been murdered by August 1941.  

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The 1941 General Strike in the Netherlands

A Protest against Anti-Jewish Round-Ups

When the Netherlands had capitulated in May 1940, the German occupiers of the country lost no time in tackling the gradual introduction of vehemently Anti-Jewish legislation. Amsterdam consequently saw a “Jewish quarter” spring up that bore a strong resemblance to a ghetto.

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The situation of the Displaced Persons

August 1945: The Harrison report is published

In August 1945, Earl G Harrison (1899-1955), an American jurist, submitted to US President Harry S Truman a report on the situation of the displaced persons (DPs) in Germany and Austria. The Harrison Report was produced on behalf of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR). Harrison came to the conclusion that three months after the end of the war, living conditions in the DP camps were alarming. He found particular fault with the poor supply of food, medicine and warm clothes to the Jewish survivors, deported persons and former forced labourers.

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May 3,2010

Thousands of Concentration Camp Inmates Met their Death at Lübeck Bay

Bomb attack launched by the Allies on 3rd May 1945

The largest-ever “evacuation marches” that left Concentration Camp Neuengamme near Hamburg were those bound for Lübeck taking along the camp’s personnel, the files of the camp administration and the prisoners’ personal effects. This action of “evacuating” Concentration Camp Neuengamme implemented between 21st and 26th April 1945 drove people to move off, partly in freight cars, partly on foot, to Neustadt where they were ‘loaded’ on three ships, the “Thielbeck”, the “Athen” and the “Cap Arcona”.

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May 2,2010

The Evacuation of Concentration Camp Neuengamme

65 years ago in April 1945

With the intention of reactivating, running again closed down brickworks, Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen erected a subsidiary camp in the Hamburg suburb of Neuengamme late in 1938. Following both a multiplication of its prisoners’ numbers and magnification of its premises, sub camp Neuengamme was ‘moved up’ to the rank of a concentration camp in the spring of 1940. Concentration Camp Neuengamme was the largest camp in the North West of the “Deutsche Reich”, its camp complex as a whole was freed in April 1945.

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April 30,2010

The Liberation of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women

By the Red Army on 30th April 1945

In 1939, the SS chose Ravensbrück near Fürstenberg to be the site of the largest-ever concentration camp built for women on German territory. In the spring of 1939, the first female prisoners were committed to Ravensbrück coming from Lichtenburg Concentration Camp. In April 1941, a camp for men was opened at Ravensbrück, too – a historical fact less known today. And in June 1942, so-called “Jugendschutzlager Uckermark” – a sort of protective camp for young women and girls – was constructed within walking distance from the other two in June 1942 completing the camp triad.

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April 29,2010

The Liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp

By the US Army on 29th April 1945

Being one of the very first concentration camps, Dachau was erected on 22nd March 1933 shortly after the NSDAP’s rise to power and freed by the American armed forces on 29th April 1945 after 12 years of uninterrupted, of continuous operation. This lengthy span of time saw the incarceration of more than 200,000 individuals, and the murder of 40,000 of them, happen at Dachau and its subsidiary camps or commandos.

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April 23,2010

The Liberation of the “Lost Train” near Tröbitz

Transports leaving Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen on 23rd April 1945

The last of the three transports leaving Bergen-Belsen between 6th and 11th April 1945 went down in the annals of history as “lost train”, “lost transport” or “train of those lost”. About 6,700 people were on the three trains in all.

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The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

15 April 1945

At Bergen-Belsen Camp that lay in about 20 kilometres’ distance from Celle and 60 kilometres’ distance from Hanover, over 50,000 concentration camp prisoners and just under 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war lost their liv

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The Liberation of Mittelbau (Dora) Concentration Camp

11 April 1945

Late in 1943, the Nazis elected to give sub camp Dora previously affiliated to Buchenwald Concentration Camp the status of a self-governing headquarters concentration camp – the last one established in the Reich – naming it Mittelbau. On 11th April 1945, it was freed by the troops of the US Army. Throughout its operational existence, an estimated number of 60,000 individuals were incarcerated in Mittelbau.  

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The Liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp

11 April 1945

While the 15th July 1937 saw the establishment of Buchenwald Concentration Camp as “labour camp” on the so-called “Ettersberg” north of Weimar, the 11th April 1945 witnessed its liberation. In the course of the camp’s operational existence, approximately 250,000 individuals were detained in Buchenwald. Close to 56,000 humans lost their lives there, with just under 11,000 of these being Jews.

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Liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp

27th January 1945

On 27th January 1945, the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated. The more the world heard and found out about the Auschwitz camp complex, the more this camp became a token of the Holocaust committed against Europe’s Jewry in particular, and of Nazi Germany’s uniquely inhuman and misanthropic system of persecution, forced labour and mass murder in general. Apart from its being inseparably intertwined with the Holocaust, the anniversary of Auschwitz’  liberation has gained universal importance: A resolution passed by the Plenary Assembly of the United Nations in November 2005 appointed the 27th January as world day of remembrance in honour of the Holocaust victims.

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“AB (=Außerordentliche Befriedungs)-Aktion” – Extraordinary Pacifying Action

Summer and Autumn of 1940

“AB-Aktion” (= Extraordinary Pacifying Action) was called the intentional murder of the leading figures of Polish Resistance and Intelligentsia the Nazis committed during the summer and autumn of 1940 in the territories occupied by the German Reich, Radom, Lublin, Krakow and Galicia – the so-called General Government. The mass shooting performed in the immediate vicinity of Warsaw, in the woods of Palmirys among other places, but also at the notorious Pawiak prison claimed the lives of professors, teachers and priests – all of them representing the country’s intellectual and political elite.

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“Decrees on Poles”

8th March 1940

After tens of thousands of Polish men and women, either voluntarily or by compulsion, had already been transported to the German Reich for labour service, the so-called “Decrees on Poles” were ordered on 8^th March 1940. From the General Government alone, the part of Poland that, though occupied by German armed forces, had not been incorporated into the Reich, more than 80,000 people had arrived at the Reich’s territory at that point in time.    

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Erecting the Lodz Ghetto

February 1940

Being the second biggest town in Poland, Lodz also had the country’s second largest Jewish community. The Jewish citizens of Lodz engaged in the fine arts’ and cultural life of the town, there were some Jewish textile manufacturers, and the Jewish population had conformed to the Polish culture to a high degree, was “acculturated”.

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Liberation of CC Natzweiler in Alsace

23 November 1944

Three and a half years ago, on 21^st April 1941, the Germans had erected a concentration camp in a place near Natzweiler called “Le Struthof”. The central camp Natzweiler was the sole concentration camp on French soil although internment and transit camps like Drancy near Paris or Compiègne – even without clearly bearing the characteristic concentration camp traits – represented horrible preliminary stages bound to lead to further deportation or annihilation.

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Members of the “Edelweiss Pirates” Are Hanged in Cologne

10 November 1944

In 1933, the youth groups organised in associations and originating in the “hikers” movement founded in 1899 were prohibited. It was owing to the modernization of the youth groups, their increasing tendency to turn away from the objectives as defined and decided in 1913, that included among others assuming responsibility for oneself and having the right of educating oneself, and owing to the latent and creeping infiltration of Anti-Semitic thinking into wide parts of the youth  movements that the Nazis succeeded in transforming and forcing into line quite swiftly the youth movements of “Hitler youth” (HJ) and “Federation of German Girls” (BdM).

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A Man Determined to Halt the War

The assassination attempt launched by Georg Elser on 8th November 1939

Johann Georg Elser, born in 1903 in Swabian Hermaringen, had five brothers and sisters and was brought up in modest circumstances. He was a German communist and lone resistance fighter against National Socialism, who launched a bomb attack on Adolf Hitler and other members of the Nazi leadership at Munich “Bürgerbräukeller” on 8^th November 1939. Shortly after the end of the war, Elser was murdered on Hitler’s personal order.

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Launching “Euthanasia”/Operation T4

October 1939

As early as from 18th August 1939 onwards, a decree passed by the Interior Ministry of the Reich called up all physicians and midwifes to report all infants and children up to the age of three years suffering from certain diseases or deficits to the health care agency in charge, the pretended motive for this measure being “to clarify scientific questions in the field of congenital malformation and mental retardation”.

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Germany’s Assault on Poland

1 September 1939

The Second World War did not simply break out, but was systematically planned by Nazi Germany as of 1933, took shape under various foreign and domestic political strategies and was immanent in Nazi ideology. The war envisaged was a leitmotif throughout all addresses, four-years-plans and propaganda.

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Erection of SS Special Camp/CC Hinzert

September 1939

Early in October 1939, a police prison camp to detain offenders who, on behalf of the “Todt organisation” (OT), worked along the Siegfried line was erected on a plateau near Hinzert in the surroundings of Trier. Its official name was “SS Special Camp Hinzert”. In July 1940, the “inspection of the concentration camps” was put in charge of the camp near Hinzert. Due to the various special functions of the camp, it kept the name “SS Special Camp”.

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“Bars” Operation

22nd August 1944

Considering that recognition is due to the resistance originally coming from the military and the church and that the victims deserve being remembered in dignity, the 20^th July 1944 for many a year has been integral part of the canon of commemoration days in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the first post-war decades, however, the assassins of the “20^th July” resistance group were often branded and vilified as “traitors”. Their Communist ideology commanded the rulers of the GDR to either discredit or negate that resistance.

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The National Uprising in Slovakia

August 1944

The “Munich Agreement” concluded in October 1938 and the annexation of the previously Czech Sudetenland by Germany preceded what Hitler called the “suppression of the remnant of Czechia“. Germany took advantage of the escalation in tension in Czech-Slovakian relations and put pressure on Slovakia with the result that the national sovereignty was called out in the country’s Parliament on 14^th March 1939, sovereignty under Germany’s “patronage”. In a next step, the coercive “protectorate agreement” between Czechia and Germany was signed – followed hard by the invasion of “Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia” unleashed on 16^th March 1939.

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“Liquidation” of the Auschwitz “Gypsies’ Camp”

August 1944

Heinrich Himmler’s so-called “Auschwitz decree” passed on 16^th December 1942, according to which all “gypsies’ half-breeds, Romanies gypsies and members of gypsies’ clans from the Balkan … are to be committed to a concentration camp”, sealed and marked the beginning of the deportation of Sinti and Romanies from, among other countries, Germany and Austria to concentration and extermination camps.

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The Liberation of Concentration Camp Majdanek

July 1944

The camp site lay in the suburb Majdan Tatarski of the Polish town Lublin after which the camp was named later on. According to latest estimates, approximately 78,000 people were murdered there, among them about 60,000 Jews. Majdanek was both a concentration and – at least temporarily – an extermination camp.

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