Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseDiscovery of Concentration Camps

ww2dbaseOn 24 Jul 1944, the Soviet army marched near Lublin in Poland as their campaign westward continued. They came across the abandoned Majdanek concentration camp, whose prisoners already had been herded off on a death march away from the advancing Soviet troops. Majdanek was burned in attempt to mask its presence as the Germans retreated from the region but the remains of gas chambers were evident. This was the first major concentration camp discovered by those fighting against Germany, and the evidence found was a brutal confirmation of the rumors of the existence of such camps. In the following weeks, Soviet troops liberated the abandoned camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

ww2dbaseOn 31 Aug 1944, the Nazi German SS organization began evacuating the Natzweiler-Struthof camp, herding its prisoners on a death march that resulted in 2,000 deaths en route to the Dachau camps. In the following months, as the concentration camps were evacuated by their commandants, the prisoners were engaged in brutal death marches against the increasingly cold terrain. The prisoners were often forced to march miles without adequate clothing or travel long distances in open rail cars for days.

ww2dbaseOne of the most brutal camp evacuations was the death march from Auschwitz camp in Jan 1945 where 15,000 prisoners died on during the death march. On 27 Jan 1945, Soviet troops from the 100th Infantry Division discovered Auschwitz 11 days after the Germans abandoned it, and found remnants of what had been a terrible nightmare: 348,820 men's suits and 836,515 women's dresses neatly folded, pyramids of dentures and eyeglasses, and seven tons of women's hair.

ww2dbaseIn the west, camps were discovered and liberated by the western Allies as well, including the Bergen-Belsen camp on 15 Apr 1945. Dwight Eisenhower toured the remnants of a concentration camp near the town of Gotha in Apr 1945 and recorded his experience that was indescribable with words: "I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency.... I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock." On 29 Apr, members of the American 101st Airborne Division discovered a labor camp that was part of the Dachau complex, the first concentration camp established, near Landsberg at the foothills of the Alps. "The memory of the starved, dazed men," remembered Richard Winters of Company E of the 506th Regiment, "who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them through the chain-link fence, in the same manner that a beaten, mistreated dog would cringe, leave feelings that cannot be described and will never be forgotten."

ww2dbaseThe Holocaust

ww2dbaseAnti-Semitism sentiment was rampant in Europe long before the Nazi Party came to power, and remained a dark stain through the modern age. Meanwhile, a small number of academics and pseudo-scientists, Karl Binding among them, began to circulate the idea that it would be merciful to kill those who were mortally wounded, terminally ill, mentally ill, or in a vegetative state. Communism rapidly rose in the final years of WW1 and expanded in influence greatly in the 1920s and 1930s, which drove fear in Central and Western Europe.

ww2dbaseThe Nazi Party politicized all of the above as they rose to power in Germany. Although it was best known for the persecution of Jews, Nazi Germany's first brutal internal campaign targeted political enemies and not Jews specifically. As early as 1933, people deemed as potential enemies of the Nazi Party were placed in extra-judicial concentration camps, where German laws otherwise protecting the rights of German citizens did not exist. In about 1937, this powerful political weapon began to be used against targeted groups of Jews, but even through the early years of the European War, German Jews who held jobs deemed critical for the war-preparation effort were allowed to remain in society, albeit as a second class citizen. For a period of about five years, certain Nazi leaders, Hermann Göring among them, understanding that anti-Semitism was rampant in Poland much like in Germany, attempted to anti-Semitism as a common cause to recruit Poland as a temporary ally against the rise of communism, but those efforts failed. As the German leaders decided that Poland must be under German influence one way or another, German troops invaded in Sep 1939. Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads followed German troops and conducted mass killings, generally by gunfire over trenches and pits. Much like what had taken place in Germany in the mid-1930s, the focus were not Jews. The primary mission of the Einsatzgruppen were to massacre influential Polish citizens in the realms of politics, clergy, education, and nobility; the killing of Polish Jews, Romani people, and the mentally ill were indeed conducted, but these killings were not considered part of the main effort, and the number of victims were indeed much smaller by contrast. In the fall of 1941, as German troops moved into the Soviet Union in a military campaign against their former allies, Einsatzgruppen again followed the regular troops, massacring potential political enemies. During this phase of the Holocaust, the Judeo-communism myth of perpetuated, ie. the false notion that Jews were responsible for communism, thus leading to a much higher number of atrocities against Jews, but the main underlying cause was still political, as the main targets of the Einsatzgruppen and a number of German Army rear units were still selected for their politics rather than for their racial makeup. Also around this time, Jews in Germany and previous occupied countries (Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc.) began to be rounded up for deportation to concentration camps and ghettos.

ww2dbaseMargot Rosenthal of Berlin was able to hide from the Gestapo agents until 5 Dec 1941 before she was found and forced to relocate to a ghetto in the Bavaria region in southern Germany. "Send us something to eat, we are starving," she wrote her friend Ruth Andreas-Friedrich in Berlin. "Don't forget me. I cry every day."

ww2dbaseOn 20 Jan 1942, the Wannsee Conference made the complete elimination of European Jews a state policy, with the responsibility given to Reinhard Heydrich. The policy was known as the "final solution of the Jewish problem". In the same month, the concentration camp at Chelmno in northern Poland began its operations which solely dedicated to the systematic extermination of its prisoners with the experience the Nazi party had already accumulated by experimenting methods of execution with 50,000 mentally deficient or terminally ill Germans. This marked the next phase of the Holocaust, both from the perspective of killing method and the makeup of victims. Prior to this point in time, the many thousands of victims were primarily being massacred by gunfire over trenches and pits, as previously noted, with some others being killed by asphyxiation via carbon monoxide inhalation using mobile gassing vans. From this point on, killing became industrialized and impersonal. While gassing vans killed about 75 victims each time, gas chambers at concentration camps and extermination camps could kill upwards of 1,000 victims each time. As far as the victims were concerned, the early phase of the Holocaust saw the death of Jews for each victim's potential opposition to the Nazi regime; meanwhile, a great number of non-Jews were killed alongside Jews. In this next phase of the Holocaust, the Jews were targeted as a racial group in addition to being victims of Nazi German politics.

ww2dbase"We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews", said German leader Adolf Hitler on 22 Feb 1942 to a group of close associates. "The Jews must vanish from the face of the Earth", later proclaimed the Nazi governor of occupied Poland Hans Frank. The work the Jews left behind, they reasoned, would be filled by imported workers from the conquered nations.

ww2dbaseIt was in camps like Chelmno that between eight to eleven million Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, Romani, the disabled, homosexuals, political dissidents, and communists were murdered. Approximately half of those perished were Jews, and half of them were Polish Jews.

ww2dbaseFried. Krupp and the Holocaust

ww2dbaseWhile the Holocaust was a state-run atrocity, businesses were not guilt-free. Large manufacturers such as I. G. Farben of Germany and H. Rella of Austria, plus many others, employed slave labor conscripted directly from the concentration camps. Fried. Krupp, a German munitions firm, was by far the most heinous offender. Krupp acquired industries in the conquered countries by highly questionable means from the first days of the European War, beginning its downward spiral in morality. In France, Yugoslav Jew Robert Rothschild's tractor factory in France was given to Krupp on 27 Aug 1942 (and Rothschild was eventually murdered at Auschwitz). But that was only to be shadowed by the firm's later atrocities. Since 1940, Krupp had been permanently housing slave labor. At first, they were treated with apologetic hospitality. Forced laborers arrived on furnished trains, they were given fresh sandwiches and sausages upon arrival, and Krupp employees helped them move their luggage into their bunkers. To most efficiently exploit the slave labor, in the summer of 1942, Auschwitz Jews were brought to build Krupp's Berthawerk factory in Silesia. In Berlin, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris protested, arguing the enlistment of slave laborers violated the clauses of the Geneva Convention and the Hague agreements, but the statements by Canaris and others fell on deaf ears. Things changed for the worse as time went on. Not only the luxuries disappeared, but the basic necessities disappeared one by one as well. Before long, the slaves from concentration camps were wearing clothing made of burlap and wooden clogs. Meals began to be skipped over frequently; when the slaves were fed, the meals were mostly just a watery soup with a paper-thin slice of bread. Corporal punishment also became more frequent.

ww2dbaseWhat really set Krupp apart from the other firms that employed slave labor was Krupp's ruthless efficiency. Aware of the Nazi policy of exterminating Jews from Europe, Krupp suggested "extermination through work" to Hitler some time in 1942. The SS initially opposed it, but approval came down after Krupp suggested commissions would be paid for each slave assigned. In Sep 1942, Hitler authorized a new policy that allowed Krupp representatives to visit concentration camps to pick out their laborers.

ww2dbaseBetween 1942 and 1945, Krupp employed forced labor in nearly 100 factories across Germany, Poland, Austria, France, and Czechoslovakia. The number was about 100,000 persons. As the Krupp factories filled up with slave laborers, their living quarters became no different than the concentration camps they had come from. Triple-layer bunks, a familiar image of concentration camps, were common in Krupp quarters for the slaves. Guard towers and barbed wires, too, became commonplace. There were Krupp employees who protested against the maltreatment of slaves, especially those of Eastern European origins who were treated worse than others, but their efforts made little difference. All they could do was sneaking in some food to the slaves when they could.

ww2dbaseTad Goldsztajn, one of the slaves at Essen in Germany, recalled later:

ww2dbaseGoldsztajn was not exaggerating. Especially toward the end of the war, Krupp treatment for the slaves could only be described as widespread sadism. The slave drivers, Krupp employees and SS men, regularly punished slaves for no apparent reason. The luckier ones got away with shaved heads. Others were hit with fists, whips, rubber tubes, and sometimes metal pipes. During the cold winters, the facilities were completely inadequate to shield them against the cold, and the slaves had nothing more than their burlap clothing and another piece of burlap as blankets; coupled with the inadequate food, many froze to death. Sanitary conditions should have been better the concentration camps, but they were not. While some concentration camps lacked toilets for their prisoners, Krupp had them, but some of the slaves were not allowed to use them; to make the Jewish slaves feel that they were sub-human as dictated by Nazi ideology, they were forced to squat outside factories and bunkers to relieve themselves, in full view of passers by. Diseases, therefore, became rampant, and there were little medical help for them. Hospitals for slaves, usually without any medical professionals, were often simply a quarantine zone with a handful of beds where the sick only got worse.

ww2dbaseEpilogue

ww2dbaseAfter the war, the term Holocaust was used to describe the systematic murders, particularly the genocide of the Jews. Advocates such as Simon Wiesenthal dedicated their efforts in finding those responsible for the murders and bringing them to justice.

ww2dbasePost-WW2 politics affected who shouldered the blame for the Holocaust. A great number of victims lost their lives over pits, but gas chambers at concentration camps and extermination camps were repeatedly and purposefully used as the location of their deaths, for that the physical boundaries of the gas chambers and camps led people to feel that the murders took place inside camps, rather than the reality that Jews and others were killed all across Germany and occupied countries. Meanwhile, the stress on bringing justice for Nazi Party leaders and SS officer and men was an attempt to pin the blame on a select and undoubtedly guilty group of Germans, while leading people to think less about the atrocities committed by the members of the German military, and the participation or collaboration of German civilians. This focus was also supported by the governments of the Soviet Union and Soviet satellite states that experienced German occupation during the war, for that they could not explain the anti-Semitic and collaborative actions committed by thousands of non-Jews in Poland, Ukraine, etc.

ww2dbaseSources:

Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers

Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe

William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp

William Manchester, The Last Lion

Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Fall of Berlin

Timothy Snyder, Black Earth

University of San Diego

Wikipedia



Last Major Update: Dec 2006

Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust Interactive Map

Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust Timeline

22 Feb 1933 Initial plans were made for a detention camp in Oranienburg, Germany.

12 Mar 1933 Oranienburg north of Berlin, Germany became the site of the first German concentration camp.

20 Mar 1933 Dachau Concentration Camp was established in Germany by the order of Heinrich Himmler; it was to be guarded by men of the SS.

22 Mar 1933 Dachau Concentration Camp in southern Germany began operations. SS-Standartenführer Hilmar Wäckerle was named the first commandant.

1 Oct 1933 SS official Theodor Eicke expanded the punishment directives at Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany; these directives were later applied to all camps until the end of the European War.

4 Oct 1933 In Germany, the "Law for Literary Leaders" dictated the content of what could now be written. A section of the law excluded Jews from the press, while another required all editors to be Aryans.

17 Nov 1933 The first non-political prisoners were sent to concentration camps in Germany.

24 Nov 1933 Germany passed laws noting that a habitual criminal, defined as a person convicted of two criminal offenses, could be detained in a concentration camp indefinitely.

28 Feb 1934 The German Army ordered the dismissal of all "Jews" (all non-Aryans) from military service.

12 Apr 1934 German justice department issued orders to prevent "improper usage of protective custody" to prevent those who did not deserve to be sent to concentration camps from being sent there; this ruling remained valid until 1938.

23 Apr 1934 The Sonnenburg and Brandenburg concentration camps closed.

1 May 1934 During this month, SS leader Theodor Eicke was given the task by Heinrich Himmler to reorganize all concentration camps, using Eicke's former direct responsiblity, Dachu Concentration Camp, as a model.

25 May 1934 Concentration camps in Emsland, Lower Saxony, Germany were placed under the jurisdiction of the German justice department; the SA provided guards for the camps.

30 Jun 1934 Oranienburg Concentration Camp in Germany was transferred under the jurisdiction of the German justice department.

1 Jul 1934 During this month, as "Night of the Long Knives" shattered the SA organization in Germany, the SS took over control of guarding concentration camps.

7 Jul 1934 German SS official Theodor Eicke was appointed the Inspector of Concentration Camps and of SS Guard Associations.

10 Dec 1934 All concentration camps in Germany were transferred under the Inspekteur der KL (Inspector for Concentration Camps, or IKL), who was a part of the SS organization; the only exception was the Kislau Concentration Camp, which remained under the Interior Ministry of Baden.

8 Jan 1935 The Gestapo prison Columbia-Haus in Berlin, Germany became a concentration camp.

15 Mar 1935 In the Hohnstein trial in Dresden, Germany, members of the SA organization who staffed the Hohenstein Concentration Camp were sentenced to prison for mistreating concentration camp prisoners; in Nov of the same year, they were all pardoned without exception.

1 Apr 1935 In Germany a nationwide network of clinics for racial hygiene was established with the aim of collecting and processing data about citizens' racial purity. The information obtained would provide a perverse instrument for social discrimination throughout the country.

13 Jun 1935 Karl-Otto Koch was made the commandant of Columbia Concentration Camp in Berlin, Germany.

1 Oct 1935 As a reaction to criticism from the German justice department on the increasing number of "unnatural deaths" in concentration camps, the Gestapo released behavior guidelines for the guards during this month.

14 Nov 1935 After lengthy argument a supplement to the German Citizenship law was published, which laid down that a German with two Jewish grandparents, who was himself an orthodox Jew, or was married to a Jew, or was the offspring of a marriage with a Jew, was Jewish under the law. However all other half or quarter Jews were still German citizens. Those who were considered Jews under this supplement were denied voting rights and forbidden to hold public office, regardless of whether he was a WW1 veteran (who had enjoyed special privileges previously despite being Jewish).

1 Apr 1936 Karl-Otto Koch stepped down as the commandant of Columbia Concentration Camp in Berlin, Germany.

20 Apr 1936 Karl-Otto Koch was made the commandant of Esterwegen Concentration Camp in Esterwegen, Germany.

5 Jun 1936 Esterwegen Concentration Camp in Germany was closed to be converted to be a punishment camp; prisoners of Esterwegen were ordered to build the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

26 Jun 1936 The German military began to exclude Jews from service.

1 Aug 1936 The 1936 Olympic Games started in Berlin, Germany; anti-Semitic posters were temporarily removed for the duration of the events.

28 Aug 1936 German authorities arrested large numbers of Jehovah's Witnesses, sending some of them to concentration camps.

5 Nov 1936 Columbia-Haus Concentration Camp in Berlin, Germany was closed.

23 Jan 1937 Heinrich Himmler disclosed that about 8,000 prisoners were in concentration camps across Germany for protective custody.

23 Feb 1937 Heinrich Himmler issued the directive to arrest about 2,000 "professional and habitual criminals" in Germany on 9 Mar 1937 in one swift strike; they were to be sent to concentration camps.

15 Jul 1937 In Germany, the construction of Buchenwald Concentration Camp began by the inmates of the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp.

1 Aug 1937 Karl-Otto Koch was made the commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Weimar, Germany.

14 Dec 1937 German National Ministry of the Interior provided legal means for the police to commit criminals to concentration camps directly.

25 Jan 1938 German National Ministry of the Interior ordered that protective custody must be served in concentration camps and not in institutions of the justice department.

21 Mar 1938 The female prisoners at Moringen Concentration Camps were transferred to the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp, which was a camp exclusively for women prisoners.

25 Mar 1938 The Evian Conference, called for by US President Franklin Roosevelt, was held in Evian, France to discuss the arrangement of homes for Jewish refugees who had fled from Germany. Ultimately the conference would result in nothing.

26 Apr 1938 Germany enacted a law that required authorization for Jews to sell or rent a company.

3 May 1938 Construction began in Germany for the Flossenburg Concentration Camp.

9 Jun 1938 The main synagogue in München (Munich) in southern Germany was demolished.

15 Jun 1938 1,500 previously-convicted Jews, including minor offenses such as traffic violations, were sent to concentration camps in Germany.

15 Jul 1938 Representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and 29 other nations met at Évian-les-Bains, France to discuss the issue of Jewish refugees fleeing out of Germany; no solid conclusion was reached.

21 Jul 1938 Germany passed laws requiring Jews to carry identification cards, effective 1 Jan 1939.

28 Jul 1938 Germany passed laws revoking medical certifications of Jewish doctors, effective 30 Sep 1938; thereafter Jewish doctors could only serve as nurses for Jewish patients.

8 Aug 1938 The building of Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria began.

10 Aug 1938 The main synagogue at Nürnberg, Germany was destroyed.

17 Aug 1938 Germany passed laws requiring Jews to add either "Israel" or "Sara" to their names, effective 1 Jan 1939.

17 Aug 1938 Adolf Hitler ordered that, in time of war, guard duties of concentration camps would be carried out by older members of the general SS; SS members older than the age of 45 began training for guard duties shortly after.

12 Sep 1938 Germany forbade Jews from attending public cultural events.

27 Sep 1938 Germany passed law to revoke licenses to practice law for all Jewish attorneys, effective 30 Nov 1938; thereafter Jewish attorneys could only act as "consultants" for other Jews on matters of law.

5 Oct 1938 Germany revoked passports belonging to Jews and made re-issuance of new passports more difficult; the new passports were stamped "J" to signify Jewish ownership.

28 Oct 1938 Germany expelled 15,000 to 17,000 Jews of Polish origin across the Polish border.

1 Nov 1938 German newspaper Kinzigwacht declared the town of Gelnhausen, Germany Judenfrei, "Free of Jews", after the town's synagogue closed its doors and the Jews forced to moved out.

15 Nov 1938 In Germany, Jewish children were expelled from schools.

28 Nov 1938 German police issued orders restricting movement of Jews.

3 Dec 1938 German government revoked driver's licenses held by Jews.

8 Dec 1938 A decree on "Combating the Gypsy Plague" was published by Heinrich Himmler as Chief of the Reich Police. Under the decree German Gypsies would now be considered as an alien race and therefore be liable for deportation or forced Labour.

24 Jan 1939 Germany established the National Central Office for Jewish Emigration with branch offices in Vienna and Prague.

18 Apr 1939 Slovakia passed anti-Semitic laws.

30 Apr 1939 Germany passed laws in preparation to move Jewish families into buildings reserved for Jewish residences.

15 May 1939 Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for women was established in Germany.

26 Jun 1939 German Gestapo ordered all Czechs who were deemed unwilling to work, politically active, or deemed to have anti-German beliefs were to be placed in concentration camps.

6 Jul 1939 The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed.

1 Sep 1939 Germany placed a curfew on German Jews: 9pm in the summer, 8pm in the winter.

1 Sep 1939 Adolf Hitler authorized Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt to "grant merciful deaths" for the mentally ill and those who were suffering from incurable diseases. This was the beginning of Action T4 euthanasia program.

1 Sep 1939 Reinhard Heydrich presided a meeting attended by the heads of Security Police and Commanders of Special Units, during which the deportation of the "remaining 30,000 Gypsies" from Germany to the soon-to-be-conquered territory of Poland was ordered.

2 Sep 1939 The Germans began the construction of Stutthof Concentration Camp in Sztutowo (German: Stutthof) in the Free City of Danzig with labor of 65,000 Polish Christians.

3 Sep 1939 German government issued orders that executions by members of the SS were to be carried out in concentration camps, effective 20 Sep 1939.

8 Sep 1939 German troops burned 200 Jews alive in a synagogue and executed 30 Jews in the public square in Bedzin, Poland.

9 Sep 1939 German Gestapo ordered all misbehaving Polish citizens to be arrested and placed in Dachau Concentration Camp in southern Germany.

19 Sep 1939 The German Army told the SS organization to hold off the rounding up and mass murder of Polish Jews until Dec 1939 when the Army would be out of the area.

23 Sep 1939 German police began confiscating radios from Jews.

24 Sep 1939 German Einsatzgruppen murdered 800 members of Polish intelligentsia at Bydgoszcz, Poland.

27 Sep 1939 Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany was temporarily closed until 18 Feb 1940 for use of training SS units; prisoners of Dachau were sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

1 Oct 1939 The German euthanasia program began on the ill and feeble.

8 Oct 1939 The first Jewish ghetto was established in Piotrkow, Poland.

10 Oct 1939 The first deportation of Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jews into concentration camps in Poland took place.

17 Oct 1939 Reinhard Heydrich ordered all Gypsy populations to cease travelling or face a concentration camp.

18 Oct 1939 Jews in Wloclawek, Poland were forced to wear the Star of David. On the same day, the first Jewish ghetto was established in Lublin, Poland.

21 Oct 1939 Germans began deporting Poles from Poznan to make the province "Germanic".

26 Oct 1939 German authoriities decreed that Polish Jews between the age of 14 and 60 were to be conscripted as forced laborers.

2 Nov 1939 The first transport of Polish women arrived at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany.

14 Nov 1939 Theodor Eicke was named the commander of all SS Death's Head units; Richard Glucks was to take over Eicke's former position as the inspector of concentration camps.

15 Nov 1939 Jews living in Reichsgau Wartheland (former Polish territory, annexed into Germany) began to be deported into the General Government region of former Poland.

17 Nov 1939 Massive Czech student uprising resulted in executions of 9 student leaders, the closing of Czech colleges and universities, and the movement of over 1,000 students to concentration camps.

23 Nov 1939 All Jews above the age of 10 in the General Government in German-occupied Poland were required to wear the Star of David.

23 Dec 1939 German SS organization decreed that Polish workers who left their workplace without permission were to be arrested and sent to concentration camps.

1 Feb 1940 SS-Reichsführer Himmler ordered inspections of potential sites for a planned concentration camp. Among those inspected was the camp at Oswiecim, Poland, known in German as Auschwitz.

10 Feb 1940 Jews from Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) and Stralsund in Pommern, Germany were deported to ghettos in Lublin, Poland.

12 Feb 1940 The first deportation of German Jews into occupied Poland took place.

21 Feb 1940 The future site of Auschwitz Concentration Camp was found in Poland.

23 Mar 1940 Deportation of Jews in German-occupied Eastern Europe continued despite of Hermann Göring's order for a temporary pause.

4 Apr 1940 Aktion 14 F 13 began; it was the first documented proof that the Nazi German regime conducted mass extermination of the handicapped in concentration camps.

27 Apr 1940 Chief of the German SS organization Heinrich Himmler gave the order to convert the 22 former artillery barrack buildings at Oswiecim, Poland into a concentration camp, later to be more commonly known by its German name, Auschwitz.

30 Apr 1940 The first guarded Jewish ghetto was established at Łódź, Poland; it was later sealed off with 230,000 Jews inside.

25 May 1940 The first transport of prisoners arrived at the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp in occupied Austria region of southern Germany.

10 Jun 1940 The Nazi Gestapo organization took control of the small fortress in Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) in occupied Czechoslovakia for use as a prison.

14 Jun 1940 A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first prisoners of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

14 Jun 1940 The first immates of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia arrived.

16 Jul 1940 Vichy France revoked the French citizenship of naturalized Jews. Meanwhile, in German-occupied Alsace-Lorraine, 22,000 French citizens were forcibly deported to France.

28 Aug 1940 Radio broadcast in Vichy France announced that laws protecting Jews in France had been removed.

1 Sep 1940 The coke-fired two-retort furnace in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp crematorium was put into service for the disposal of bodies.

20 Sep 1940 The first group of prisoners arrived at Fort Breendonk in Belgium.

2 Oct 1940 Adolf Hitler ordered Hans Frank and other Nazi officials in occupied Poland to keep the standard of living low and to deprive the Polish population of education, for that the Polish people were now mere low laborers of Germany. Additionally, he ordered that the Polish gentry to be exterminated.

3 Oct 1940 Vichy France passed anti-Semitic laws that excluded Jews from positions in the army, government, commerce, industries, and the press. The law was signed by Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Raphaël Alibert, Marcel Peyrouton, Paul Baudouin, Yves Bouthillier, Charles Huntzinger, and François Darlan.

9 Oct 1940 The occupation government in the Netherlands banned Jews and half-Jews from public employment.

12 Oct 1940 German Governor-General of occupied Poland Hans Frank ordered 138,000 Jews in Warsaw to move into the city's ghetto.

16 Oct 1940 German authorities ordered the establishment of Warsaw ghettos for Jews in occupied Poland.

15 Nov 1940 The Warsaw ghetto in Poland was sealed from the rest of the city, enclosing 400,000 Jews inside.

22 Nov 1940 The first execution by shooting took place at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 40 men from Katowice, Poland were shot between 0000 and 0020 hours by SS men in retaliation of assault on a police official.

2 Jan 1941 German leaders Himmler and Heydrich categorized concentration camps into three categories for different types of prisoners, but in practice this categorization had little actual effect.

22 Jan 1941 The first massacre of Jews in Romania took place.

22 Feb 1941 430 Dutch Jews were deported from Amsterdam to Auschwitz Concentration Camp as reprisal for the murder of a Dutch Nazi Party member.

1 Mar 1941 Heinrich Himmler paid his first visit to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. During the visit, he ordered Commandant Rudolf Höss to expand the current camp to hold a total of 30,000 prisoners, expand the camp to Birkenau with capacity for 100,000 prisoners, supply 10,000 prisoners to work for the nearby I.G. Farben factory, and to expand the camp's agricultural and industrial output.

6 Mar 1941 New German laws decreed that Polish farm workers were not to complain, were denied from any cultural events, and were forbidden to have sexual intercourse.

9 Mar 1941 Polish Jews from the city of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) began to be deported to the town of Chrzanow in southern Poland.

9 Mar 1941 Vichy France announced that authorization was now needed for Jews to sell or rent a company.

6 Apr 1941 A transport of 1,021 prisoners from Pawiak Prison in Warsaw, Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Famous actors Bronislaw Dardzinski, Tadeusz Hertman Kanski, Stefan Jaracz, Zbigniew Nowakowski, and Leon Schiller were among them, arrested for the murder of actor Igo Sym who collaborated with German propaganda efforts.

14 Apr 1941 The first major mass arrest of Jews in Paris, France took place.

17 Apr 1941 SS-Untersturmfuehrer Maximilian Grabner at Auschwitz Concentration Camp announced that urns containing the ashes of Polish political prisoners who died at Auschwitz no longer needed to be sent to their families.

1 May 1941 Groß-Rosen Concentration Camp, formerly a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, became an independent camp. It was located in Groß-Rosen, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Rogoznica, Poland).

14 May 1941 3,600 French Jews in Paris, France were arrested.

15 May 1941 Dr. Sigmund Rascher requested Heinrich Himmler via a letter requesting concentration camp prisoners to be placed in his disposal to conduct experiments in decompression chambers which simulated high altitude environments.

22 Jun 1941 Jews from the Dorohoi district of Romania were branded as communists and spies and transported by cattle cars to concentration camps in Tirgu and Craiova.

25 Jun 1941 Lithuanian militiamen in Kovno were encouraged by German security officers to stage a pogrom, and that night 1,500 Jews were murdered with particular savagery.

27 Jun 1941 In Kaunas, Lithuania, a group of Lithuanian nationalists gathered more than 50 Jewish men in a horse stable and beat them violently with iron bars in public view. None of the victims survived the Lietukis Garage Massacre.

29 Jun 1941 Romanian troops conducted a pogrom against Jews in the town of Jassy, killing 10,000.

2 Jul 1941 The local police in Riga, Latvia was organized by a German commander to murder 400 Jews and burn down all Riga's synagogues.

8 Jul 1941 Jews in the Baltic states were forced to wear the Star of David.

21 Jul 1941 Outside Minsk, Byelorussia, German SS troops ordered 30 Byelorussians to bury 45 Jews alive in a pit; upon meeting refusal, the SS men executed the entire group of 75 by machine gun fire.

22 Jul 1941 Vichy France enacted a law that required Jews to register their businesses, which in effect excluded all Jews from commerce and industry.

26 Jul 1941 3,800 Lithuanian Jews were killed during a pogrom in Kovno.

28 Jul 1941 A special commission created on Heinrich Himmler's orders arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp to select prisoners within the framework of the "Euthanasia Program" for the incurably ill, extended in 1940 to Jews and in the middle of 1941 to prisoners of concentration camps. The 573 selected, most were sick Polish prisoners from Block 15, were told that they were to be transferred to other camps for easier work because of their conditions. At last moment, two German criminals Johann Siegruth and Ernst Krankemann were added to the list. The 575 were sent to Sonnenstein Castle under the supervision of Franz Hössler and were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in a gas chamber disguised as a shower room.

15 Aug 1941 In Germany it became a criminal offence for Jews not to wear the yellow Star of David.

20 Aug 1941 After sundown, the Germans conducted another round-up of Jews in Paris, France. Their French passports were confiscated, and they would eventually be deported to the Drancy Concentration Camp and later to various concentration camps in Germany and Eastern Europe.

26 Aug 1941 The Hungarian Army rounded up 18,000 Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine.

1 Sep 1941 Alfons Bentele was assigned to Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

1 Sep 1941 All Jews above the age of six in Germany and occupied lands were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David with the word "Jude" inscribed in black within; this was to be effective 19 Sep 1941.

3 Sep 1941 Experimental trials of gas chambers at Block II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland began, using Soviet prisoners of war as test subjects. Zyklon-B was used.

5 Sep 1941 The exhibition "Le Juif et la France" ("The Jews and France") opened in Paris, France based on the work of the anti-Semitic French Professor George Montandon with the urging of the Nazi German occupation.

6 Sep 1941 The Vilna Ghetto was established in Lithuania, containing 40,000 Jews.

12 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 993 adult male, 1,670 adult female, and 771 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 3,334 people.

16 Sep 1941 German troops massacred Jews en masse in Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

17 Sep 1941 The general deportation of German Jews began.

17 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 337 adult male, 687 adult female, and 247 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,271 people. 4 Communists were also executed in Vilnius by Jager's Einsatzgruppen on this date.

20 Sep 1941 The Karl Jäger report, issued on 1 Dec 1941, noted that on this date 128 adult male, 179 adult female, and 99 children, all Jews, were killed in Nemencing, Lithuania for a total of 403 people.

22 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 512 adult male, 744 adult female, and 511 children, all Jews, were killed in Riess, Lithuania for a total of 1,767 people.

23 Sep 1941 The German authorities in Paris, France issued a decree that stated that any French man concealing or assisting a British Airman would be shot, and any woman would be sent to a concentration camp.

24 Sep 1941 The German Einsatzgruppe C set up its headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine.

25 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 215 adult male, 229 adult female, and 131 children, all Jews, were killed in Jahiuna, Lithuania for a total of 575 people.

27 Sep 1941 23,000 Jews were massacred at Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine.

27 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 989 adult male, 1,636 adult female, and 821 children, all Jews, were killed in Eysisky, Lithuania for a total of 3,446 people.

28 Sep 1941 A notice was posted in Kiev, Ukraine, requiring all Jews in the region to gather at Dorogozhitshaya Street at 0700 hours the next day.

30 Sep 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 366 adult male, 483 adult female, and 597 children, all Jews, were killed in Trakai, Lithuania for a total of 1,446 people.

1 Oct 1941 Operations began at Majdanek Concentration Camp near Lublin, Poland.

4 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 432 adult male, 1,115 adult female, and 436 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,983 people.

6 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 213 adult male, 359 adult female, and 390 children, all Jews, were killed in Semiliski, Lithuania for a total of 962 people.

9 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 1,169 adult male, 1,840 adult female, and 717 children, all Jews, were killed in Svenciany, Lithuania for a total of 3,726 people.

14 Oct 1941 Germany announced that all Jews within the 1933 border would be deported; these Jews were beginning to be deported to ghettos in Poland, Byelorussia, and Ukraine.

15 Oct 1941 German SS-Brigadeführer Franz Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A sent a 130-page report to Berlin, Germany on this date. He reported that, among other things, 71,105 Jews had been liquidated in Lithuania and 30,000 Jews in Latvia, and 3,387 Communists in Russia.

16 Oct 1941 A round of mass deportation of Jews from Germany began.

16 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 382 adult male, 507 adult female, and 257 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,146 people.

17 Oct 1941 The first transport of deported Czech Jews departed for various locations in Eastern Europe.

17 Oct 1941 The German propaganda ministry declared Luxembourg Judenfrei, "Free of Jews".

21 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 718 adult male, 1,063 adult female, and 586 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 2,367 people.

23 Oct 1941 2,014 German Jews originally from Cologne, Germany arrived at the Łódź Ghetto in Poland.

23 Oct 1941 The German government banned the emigration of Jews.

25 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 1,776 adult female and 812 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 2,578 people.

27 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 946 adult male, 184 adult female, and 73 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,203 people.

28 Oct 1941 34,000 Jews were massacred in Kiev, Ukraine.

29 Oct 1941 15,000 Jews were massacred in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. Their remains were buried in mass graves at the Ninth Fort.

30 Oct 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 382 adult male, 789 adult female, and 362 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,553 people.

6 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 340 adult male, 749 adult female, and 252 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 1,341 people.

9 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 76 adult male, 77 adult female, and 18 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 171 people.

16 Nov 1941 On this Sunday, a Catholic Mass was secretly held in a dark aisle between bunks on the second floor of Block 4 at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

19 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 6 prisoners of war and 8 Polish Jews were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania.

20 Nov 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp were inactivated for servicing; camp commandant ordered that corpses of prisoners were to be transported to Birkenau (not yet a camp) for burying in mass graves until the servicing was done on 3 Dec 1941.

20 Nov 1941 In Vilnius, Lithuania, 3 prisoners of war were executed as later reported by the Jager Report on 1 Dec 1941.

24 Nov 1941 The walled city of Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) began its conversion into a ghetto for Jews. Its mission was to serve as a transit camp for Jews en route to concentration camps to the east.

25 Nov 1941 The Jager Report (issued on 1 Dec 1941) noted that 9 adult male, 46 adult female, and 8 children, all Jews, were killed in Vilnius, Lithuania for a total of 63 people. Additionally, 1 Polish national was also executed for possession of arms.

30 Nov 1941 Latvian and German Jews were massacred near Riga, Latvia.

1 Dec 1941 SS-Standartenfuhrer Jager submitted a report dated on this day, noting that his Einsatzgruppen, operating in Lithuania, had killed 99,804 Jews in that country to this date. In the same report, the detachment also under Jager sent to Minsk, Byelorussia reported killing 620 adult male, 1,285 adult female, and 1,126 children, all Jews; 19 communists were also executed in Minsk by this detachment.

3 Dec 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp that was inactivated on 20 Nov for service were reactivated.

8 Dec 1941 Chelmno Concentration Camp north of Łódź, Poland began mass murders using gas vans; it was the first large camp established for the purpose of mass exterminations. The first victims were Jewish and Romani civilians from surrounding towns.

15 Dec 1941 German SS personnel began killing the remaining Jews in Liepaja, Latvia, most of whom were women and children.

16 Dec 1941 The German SS slaughter of Jews in Liepaja, Latvia continued.

16 Dec 1941 The refugee ship Struma arrived in Istanbul, Turkey with 769 Romanian Jews aboard; without permission to enter Palestine, they would remain on the ship for the following two months.

17 Dec 1941 2,749 Jews, mostly women and children, were killed on the beach near Liepaja, Latvia. Most Jews of Liepaja were now eliminated, short of a small left alive to be used as slave laborers.

21 Dec 1941 Isopescu, the Romanian governor of Golta, Transnistria, Romania (now Pervomaisk, Ukraine), ordered the execution of Jews at Bogdanovka Concentration Camp. 4,000 Jews were moved into cow sheds then burned alive. An unknown number of Jews were marched into a ravine and executed by gunfire in the following four days. The massacre ended in the evening of 24 Dec 1941.

24 Dec 1941 94 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On the same day, 37 prisoners from block 20 of Auschwitz were killed by heart phenol injection.

25 Dec 1941 60 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

30 Dec 1941 10,000 Jews were massacred in Simferopol, Russia.

9 Jan 1942 A transport of 1,005 Jews departed from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia for locations in Eastern Europe. Most of them were sent to Riga, Latvia.

15 Jan 1942 In Poland, German authorities began to deport Jews from the Łódź ghetto to the Chelmno Concentration Camp.

26 Jan 1942 Heinrich Himmler announced his plan to send 100,000 Jewish men and 50,000 Jewish women to concentration camps for use as forced laborers within the following four weeks.

31 Jan 1942 German SS Einsatzgruppe A reported a tally of 229,052 Jews killed in the Baltic States and in Byelorussia, while Estonia was reported to be free of Jews. Extermination activities had paused in Lithuania, it reported, but would soon be picked up again.

12 Feb 1942 Sigmund Rascher submitted a report on the effect of nude women on men who had been exposed to extreme cold; this project was ordered by Himmler. Rascher noted that for the most part, warm baths were more effective.

23 Feb 1942 Turkish troops boarded the disabled passenger ship Struma at Istanbul, Turkey; Struma had departed Romania in Dec 1941 with 769 Romanian Jewish refugees on board and had been at Istanbul for two months. The Turkish troops prepared Struma for towing, and before the day ended she was towed through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, where she was abandoned with all passengers still aboard.

24 Feb 1942 Passenger ship Struma, powerless with broken-down engines, drifted in the Black Sea after being abandoned by Turkish authorities on the previous day. In the morning, Soviet submarine SC-213 sank Struma with one torpedo, killing 768 of 769 Romanian Jewish refugees aboard.

1 Mar 1942 Construction for Sobibór Concentration Camp in occupied Poland began.

13 Mar 1942 1,200 sick prisoners from the hospital within Auschwitz I camp who were judged as not able to recover were transferred to the BIb sector of Birkenau camp, where they were killed. Their bodies were transported back to Auschwitz I to be cremated.

13 Mar 1942 In Poland, The Belzec Concentration Camp opened for operation with a transport of 6,000 Jews from Mielec, Poland.

15 Mar 1942 At Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, 28 prisoners died in the hospital. At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, SS guards killed 131 prisoners without reason before noon, and in the afternoon about 250 prisoners (including 103 Soviet prisoners of war) died from wounds sustained during torture.

16 Mar 1942 Belzec Concentration Camp was established in occupied Poland for the purpose of holding and exterminating Jews from Lublin and Galicia.

17 Mar 1942 In Aktion Reinhard, Jews from Lublin, Poland were sent to the nearby Belzec concentration camp.

17 Mar 1942 Sobibór concentration camp in occupied Poland conducted its first experimental gassing. Between 30 to 40 Jewish women from the Krychów forced labor camp were killed.

20 Mar 1942 Gas chambers of Block I of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) Concentration Camp began extermination operations.

21 Mar 1942 Jews from the Lublin ghetto in occupied Poland were deported to Belzec, Majdanek, and other concentration camps.

22 Mar 1942 Mass exterminations of Jews using Zyklon B gas began at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

24 Mar 1942 Deportation of Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp began.

26 Mar 1942 A transport of 999 female Slovakian Jews from Poprad, Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they were the first Slovakians sent by Adolf Eichmann's RSHA IVB4 office. Coinciding with the arrival of the Slovakian Jews was the arrival of the first transport of female prisoners from Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in northern Germany, also containing 999 Jews.

27 Mar 1942 The deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp began.

30 Mar 1942 French Jews began arriving at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, with the first transport originating from Compiegne.

10 Apr 1942 Norwegian Lutheran Bishop Eivind Berggrav, having been arrested by the German occupation administration in Norway for resistance on the previous day, was sent to the Bredtvet Concentration Camp.

16 Apr 1942 A large group of Polish artists and actors were arrested by the Germans in the Artists' Cafe in Krakow, Poland.

25 Apr 1942 The large group of Polish artists and actors arrested in Krakow, Poland were put on a transport for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

27 Apr 1942 The first of 127 Polish female political prisoners arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were imprisoned in Block 8.

28 Apr 1942 SS-Obersturmführer Franz Stangl was named the first commandant of Sobibór concentration camp in occupied Poland.

5 May 1942 German government ruled that deaths of concentration camp prisoners no longer had to be reported to the next of kin.

10 May 1942 A new concentration camp was opened near the village of Maly Trostenets near Minsk, Byelorussia.

16 May 1942 Sobibór concentration camp in occupied Poland was deemed fully operational.

18 May 1942 The newspaper New York Times published an article in an inside page that Germans had killed 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states, 100,000 in Poland, and 200,000 in Russia.

27 May 1942 168 prisoners, all Polish artists and actors arrested in the previous month, were shot at the execution wall in the courtyard of Block 11 in Auschwitz I in occupied Poland. They were killed in retaliation of the death of the German Luftwaffe commanding officer in Krakow, where the victims came from.

31 May 1942 Monowitz labor camp, later to become Auschwitz III, opened on this date, housing forced laborers charged with building the Buna-Works for the German chemical firm I. G. Farben.

1 Jun 1942 The Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began operation.

2 Jun 1942 About 50 German Jews from Berlin arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. They were the first German Jews to arrive at this camp.

7 Jun 1942 All Jews over the age of six were forced to wear the Star of David in occupied France.

10 Jun 1942 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, about 50 Polish prisoners in the penal company attempted to escape while working at a drainage ditch in Birkenau; it was the first mass escape in the history of the camp. 9 were able to escape successfully. In response, the SS guards executed 20 prisoners by firing squad and sent 300 prisoners from the penal company in the gas chamber.

12 Jun 1942 During the morning roll call at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, 60 Polish prisoners were called out. They were shot at the Death Wall in the courtyard of Block 11 in retaliation of clandestine resistance organizations in Silesia region. The victims were transferred to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1942 from Sosnowiec, Katowice, and Krakow.

20 Jun 1942 About 1,000 Austrian Jews arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia; they were the first Austrian Jews to arrive at this camp.

20 Jun 1942 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz Concentration Camp Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart, and Eugeniusz Bendera broke into a SS store room and stole uniforms and weapons and then made their escape from the concentration camp in disguise.

20 Jun 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published the report from the World Jewish Congress that the Germans had, to date, killed 1,000,000 Jews in "vast slaughterhouse for the Jews" located in Eastern Europe.

30 Jun 1942 All Jewish schools in Germany were forced to close.

30 Jun 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's Bunker II, the second gas chamber, became operational.

1 Jul 1942 Jews were massacred in Byelorussian cities of Minsk, Lida, and Slonim.

1 Jul 1942 The Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands began operations.

2 Jul 1942 The New York Times reported via the London Daily Telegraph that over 1,000,000 Jews had already been killed by Nazis.

2 Jul 1942 A group of Jews from Berlin, Germany were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia.

4 Jul 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland began mass gassings.

7 Jul 1942 Heinrich Himmler authorized sterilization experiments to take place at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

14 Jul 1942 Some German Jews were deported from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Minsk, Byelorussia and other locations in Eastern Europe.

14 Jul 1942 The deportation of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp began.

16 Jul 1942 9,000 French policemen conducted a round-up, gathering 12,887 Parisian Jews born outside of France. 6,000 of them were sent to Drancy Concentration Camp Camp located just outside the city, while the other 6,000 were detained at the Vélodrome d'Hiver stadium where they had to share one water tap and ten toilets.

22 Jul 1942 At a meeting of the Judenrat, the Jewish Council which the Germans had set up to relay their orders to the people of the ghetto, SS Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, the Resettlement Commissar, announced that all Jews living in Warsaw, Poland, regardless of age or sex, were to hold themselves in readiness for "resettlement on the east", ie. deportation. It was an order without appeal. For nine weeks the Ghetto Jews were herded onto cattle trucks and transported to Belzec and Treblinka Concentration Camps, where, on arrival, they were marched to the gas chambers and killed in their thousands.

22 Jul 1942 Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland began.

23 Jul 1942 Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland began mass extermination by gassing. Its first prisoners would be Jews recently deported from the ghetto in Warsaw. 700,000 would be killed within the following one year.

28 Jul 1942 Heinrich Himmler received a report from the railroad industry that, since 22 Jul 1942, 5,000 Jews arrived from Warsaw, Poland each day for each of Treblinka Concentration Camp and 5,000 Jews arrived from Przemysl each week for Belzec Concentration Camp.

28 Jul 1942 A transport of 1,010 Jews (542 men and 468 women) arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland from Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; after the selection, 473 men and 315 women were registered; the remaining 222 were killed in the gas chambers.

31 Jul 1942 1,000 Jews from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia were taken to Baranowitsche Concentration Camp in Poland and gassed in vans.

4 Aug 1942 Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp began.

10 Aug 1942 Jews of Lvov Ghetto in Ukraine started to be deported to concentration camps; 40,000 were deported within the following 12 days.

14 Aug 1942 7,000 "stateless" Jews were arrested in France by German authorities.

24 Aug 1942 Karl-Otto Koch stepped down as the commandant of Majdanek Concentration Camp in Poland.

26 Aug 1942 7,000 Jews were arrested in Vichy France.

1 Sep 1942 Martin Gottfried Weiss was made the commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.

1 Sep 1942 SS-Obersturmführer Franz Reichleitner was named the commandant of Sobibór concentration camp in occupied Poland, replacing Franz Stangl.

9 Sep 1942 Burning of bodies in open-air pits began at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Additionally, a decision was made to dig up 107,000 already-buried bodies and burn them in pits; this decision was made to prevent the large number of bodies contaminating ground water.

18 Sep 1942 Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia surpassed its maximum capacity; 58,491 prisoners now resided in the camp.

18 Sep 1942 Monsignor Montini, future Pope Paul VI, sent a letter to Pope Pius XII, noting that "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms".

26 Sep 1942 The Nazi SS organization began to confiscate possessions of Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps prisoners. Currency, gold, and jewelry were sent to the SS Headquarters of the Economic Administration. Watches, clocks, and pens were sent to the troops on the front lines. Finally, clothing was distributed to German families in need.

30 Sep 1942 A transport containing 610 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; 37 men and 118 women were registered into the camp, and the remaining 454 were gassed.

5 Oct 1942 Heinrich Himmler ordered that all Jews in concentration camps in Germany were to be transferred to Auschwitz or Majdanek concentration camps.

10 Oct 1942 From Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, Sigmund Rascher reported his findings from experiments involving putting concentration camp prisoners in full flight suits and placing them in freezing conditions, concluding that the warming of the subjects' heads and necks were vital for the subjects' survival.

10 Oct 1942 German government increased rations by 10% for all foreign workers.

18 Oct 1942 The German Ministry of Justice transferred the responsibility for Jews and citizens of Eastern European countries within Germany to the Gestapo.

23 Oct 1942 Auschwitz-bound prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany staged a revolt that resulted in failure.

26 Oct 1942 850 Jews were arrested in Norway. Meanwhile, in Nürnberg, Germany, 95 scientists gathered to review the result of Dr. Sigmund Rascher's freezing experiments using concentration camp prisoners as subjects.

28 Oct 1942 The first transport from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

29 Oct 1942 16,000 Ukrainian Jews of Pinsk Ghetto in Poland (now in Belarus) were massacred two days after Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of this ghetto.

30 Oct 1942 All Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp were brought out for a roll call; 800 were chosen to be sent to the newly created Buna sub-camp in Monowice to supply workers for the nearly I.G. Farben chemical plant; a number of prisoners too weak to work were sent to the gas chambers.

30 Oct 1942 In Belgium, German Gestapo officers rounded up 100 Jewish children and their carers from a children's home in Brussels and moved them to a transit camp in Mechelen; protests, including one from the secretary-general of the Belgian Ministry of Justice, forced the Germans to return the children to the home.

1 Nov 1942 About 600 Dutch Jews and 977 German Jews from Berlin were gassed at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

3 Nov 1942 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was caught while attempting to escape from sector BIb of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. He was later executed on 24 Jul 1943 in the washroom of Block 11.

4 Nov 1942 A transport of 954 Jewish men, women, and children from Westerbork Concentration Camp in occupied Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 50 women were registered in the camp and 904 people were killed in the gas chambers.

5 Nov 1942 German government ordered that all Jews in concentration camps within Germany were to be deported to Auschwitz and Majdanek camps.

7 Nov 1942 A transport of 465 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands. During the selection all of them were said to be unable to work, thus were all sent for one of the two provisional gas chambers.

8 Nov 1942 25 Jewish professional watchmakers were transferred from Majdanek Concentration Camp to Auschwitz Concentration Camp; they were later transferred to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where they would work in a workshop to sort and repair watches stolen from killed Jews for use by German troops.

14 Nov 1942 Two transports containing a total of 2,500 Jews from Ciechanow ghettos, Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 633 men and 135 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 1,732 were killed in gas chambers. On the same day, 1,500 Jews from Bialystok District 2 in Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 82 men and 379 women were registered into the came, and the remaining 839 were killed in gas chambers. Finally, the SS doctors of Auschwitz Concentration Camp sent 110 prisoners from the Auschwitz I hospital to Birkenau Concentration Camp to be killed in the gas chambers.

18 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from ghettos of Grodno, Byelorussia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; 165 men and 65 women were registered, and about 770 were gassed.

24 Nov 1942 Rabbi Stephen Wise held a press conference in Washington, DC, United States on the Nazi extermination of European Jews. The information he shared was based a telegram sent by World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart Riegner in Aug 1942.

25 Nov 1942 The first deportation of Norwegian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland took place.

25 Nov 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published an announcement on page ten by Rabbi Wise about the slaughter of two million Jews.

26 Nov 1942 German government ordered that all Jewish forced laborers in the armament industry in Germany were to be deported to Auschwitz and Majdanek camps.

28 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from Ciechanów ghettos in Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; after the selection 325 men and 169 women were registered in the camp, and the remaining about 506 people were gassed.

2 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp on this date. The first transport from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived with 826 Jews; 77 of them were registered into the camp, and the remaining 749 were gassed. The second transport from Grodno ghetto arrived with 1,000 Jews; 178 men and 60 women were registered into the camp, and the remaining 762 were gassed.

3 Dec 1942 Approximately 300 Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando who dug up and burned the 107,000 bodies buried in mass graves were taken from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to the main camp by SS guards. They were led to the gas chamber in Crematorium I and killed.

5 Dec 1942 The SS authorities organized a general selection among the prisoners of the female camp BIa in Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, which lasted all day, after which 2,000 young, healthy and fit to work women prisoners were killed in gas chambers.

6 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Of the 811 Jews from the Netherlands, 16 were registered in the camp and 795 were gassed. Of the about 2,500 Jews from the Mlawa ghetto, 406 were registered in the camp and around 2,094 were gassed.

10 Dec 1942 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The first was from the Netherlands with 927 Jews; 39 men and 3 women were registered, and 885 were gassed. The second was from Berlin, Germany with 1,060 Jews; 137 men and 25 women were registered, and 898 were gassed. The third was from Malkinia, Poland with about 2,500 Jews; 524 were registered and about 1,976 were gassed.

13 Dec 1942 "Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered", reported American journalist Edward R. Murrow. "There are no longer 'concentration camps' - we must speak now only of 'extermination camps'."

18 Dec 1942 The American newspaper New York Times published a front page story on the Nazi extermination of European Jews.

28 Dec 1942 Concentration camp doctors at Birkenau began sterilization experiments on female prisoners.

29 Dec 1942 In the afternoon, prisoners Otto Küsel, Jan Baras, Mieczyslaw Januszewski, and Dr. Boleslaw Kuczbara escaped from Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Otto Küsel, a German Jew with horse cart driving responsibilities, loaded up four cabinets for transport with the other three hidden inside, reaching an open field in the production area without being checked by SS guards due to the appearance of his usual duty. Mieczyslaw Januszewski came out, wearing a SS uniform and wielding a rifle, and sat next to Küsel. They left the camp after Januszewski produced a false SS identification. They made contact shortly after with the resistance group Polish Home Army.

6 Jan 1943 Jews in Opoczno, Poland were told that those with family in Palestine would be deported there. 500 Jews came out from hiding to register and were sent to Treblinka Concentration Camp where they were gassed.

9 Jan 1943 In the early afternoon, Czech prisoner Georg Zahradka or Zacharatka escaped from Auschwitz I concentration camp, but was captured by midnight near watchtower 26. He was executed on 14 Jan 1943.

11 Jan 1943 A transport of 750 Dutch Jews departed from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands for Sobibór Concentration Camp in Poland.

13 Jan 1943 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, each containing 1,210 German Jews from Berlin (1,083 of them were sent directly to the gas chambers), 750 Dutch Jews (88 men and 101 women were registered, and the remaining 561 were gassed), and 2,000 Jews of Zambrów ghetto in Poland (148 men and 50 women were registered, and the remaining 1,802 were gassed).

14 Jan 1943 Georg Zahradka was executed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp for attempting to escape during the night of 9 Jan 1943.

20 Jan 1943 Transports of Jews from Theresienstadt Ghetto in occupied Czechoslovakia departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; several more transports departed from Theresienstadt in the following 6 days.

20 Jan 1943 German Inspector of Concentration Camps advised camp commandants to reduce rate of death for camp prisoners; however, camp doctors were given orders to kill the sick and the debilitated.

24 Jan 1943 A transport from a psychiatric hospital at Apeldoornse Bosh with 921 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. After the selection, 16 men and 60 women were registered; the remaining were sent to the gas chambers.

29 Jan 1943 German officials in Prague dissolved the Jewish Religious Congregation, the supreme authority for Czechoslovakia's Jewish communities. This organization would be succeeded by the Council of Jewish Elders on 8 Feb 1943, which was deemed to be more compliant by the German officials.

29 Jan 1943 Kurt Prüfer of German engineering firm J. A. Topf und Söhne visited the Central Construction Office of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, inspecting the Crematoria II, III, IV, and V construction progress; he estimated the launch of Crematorium II to be around 15 Feb, Crematorium III around 17 Apr, Crematorium IV around 28 Feb, and Crematorium V's completion date depended largely on weather.

29 Jan 1943 German authorities ordered Roma and Sinti people across German-occupied Europe to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

31 Jan 1943 A transport with 2,834 Polish Jews from Pruzany arrived in Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it included 230 children under four and 520 children between four and ten. 313 men and 180 women were registered in the camp; the remaining 2,341, including all 750 children, were gassed.

1 Feb 1943 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland, SS personnel selected 20 Jewish prisoners who were already working at the crematorium in Auschwitz I and readied them for work in the soon-to-be-ready new crematoriums in Birkenau.

4 Feb 1943 A transport of 890 Jews from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 48 of the 312 males and 52 of the females were registered; the remaining 790 were sent to the gas chambers.

6 Feb 1943 All female prisoners at Auschwitz Concentration Camp were gathered for a general roll call at 0330 hours then marched outside the camp. They were kept outdoors until 1700 hours, then were ordered to run back to the camp, prodded by swinging clubs. About 1,000 women died during this forced march. Those who were not able to keep up but survived were rounded up and sent to block 25 in the BIa sector of the camp, from which location they would later be transported to the gas chambers.

10 Feb 1943 The German Central Construction Office (Bauleitung) reported that it could not meet the deadline for the construction of Crematorium II at Auschwitz Concentration Camp due to the fact that, of the 500 masons requested, only 30 were available.

11 Feb 1943 A transport from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 476 men and 708 women; 113 men and 66 women were registered, and the remaining 1,005 were killed in the gas chambers.

12 Feb 1943 German engineering firm J. A. Topf und Söhne sent a letter to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, confirming that it had received the order to build Crematoriums II and III at the camp.

12 Feb 1943 Jews from the Bialystok ghetto in Poland began to be deported to Treblinka Concentration Camp.

20 Feb 1943 A special section was established at the Hinzert Concentration Camp for Polish civilian workers who fraternized with German women.

22 Feb 1943 Bulgaria agreed to a German demand to deport 11,000 Jews from 23 communities in Thrace and Macedonia, occupied areas of Yugoslavia and Greece. They were sent to Treblinka Concentration Camp where many of them died subsequently.

23 Feb 1943 Germans brought 39 Jewish prisoners from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to Block 20 of Auschwitz I in occupied Poland. These prisoners, aged 13 to 17, were killed by phenol injections administered by SS-Unterscharführer Herbert Scherpe in the evening. These prisoners were originally from the Zamosc region of Poland.

26 Feb 1943 The German government issued the order that Eastern European workers who were originally sent to concentration camps for a temporary basis were now to be held at the camps indefinitely.

26 Feb 1943 The first transport of Roma and Sinti arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they were assigned to the BIIe sector at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and housed in what was called the "Gypsy camp" (Zigeunerlager); this sector would eventually grow to house 23,000 Sinti and Roma people; 20,000 of them would not survive the Holocaust.

27 Feb 1943 Jews in Berlin, Germany who were previously allowed to remain there due to their positions in the armaments industry were deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Meanwhile, the Rosenstrasse protest began in Berlin by women who had married Jewish men.

28 Feb 1943 A mistake in record-keeping at Auschwitz Concentration Camp caused registration information of the women's camp in Birkenau to be in a state of confusion. All female prisoners of Birkenau camp were gathered for a prolonged roll call which lasted the entire day to re-confirm camp records; at the same time, a selection also took place among the women, which condemned some of them to the gas chambers.

3 Mar 1943 The 32nd transport from Berlin, Germany arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland in two trains, totaling 1,758 German Jews and 158 Norwegian Jews. 535 men and 145 women were registered into the camp from the first train, and 50 and 164 were registered from the second train. The remaining 1,022 were killed in gas chambers.

4 Mar 1943 The Bulgarian government, in an attempt to protect Bulgarian Jews, fulfilled German pressure by deporting about 4,000 Greek Jews from the occupied territory of Thrace. These Greek Jews were eventually sent to concentration camps in Poland.

5 Mar 1943 During a test run of Crematorium II at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it took 40 minutes to cremate 45 bodies. An observing commission, which included engineers from the firm J. A. Topf and Sons and SS officers, complained that the amount of time it took was too long. They instructed the prisoners who operated the crematorium to keep the generators running for several days to increase the temperature.

7 Mar 1943 Roma and Sinti people from occupied Poland and Soviet Union began arriving at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

7 Mar 1943 4,500 Croatian Jews were arrested; they would be deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland between 7 and 13 Mar 1943.

9 Mar 1943 40,000 people attended an event at Madison Square Garden, New York, New York, United States organized by Peter Bergson to raise awareness of the Nazi extermination of European Jews.

10 Mar 1943 The German Gestapo organization sent 11 Polish men and 11 Polish women from Bielsko, Poland to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

11 Mar 1943 German RSHA organization ordered that all Jews in the criminal rehabilitation system were to be sent to Auschwitz or Majdanek concentration camps, where they would remain indefinitely, after they served their sentences. Meanwhile, Bulgarian troops arrested 7,100 Macedonian Jews and deported them to the new Skopje Concentration Camp in Yugoslavia.

12 Mar 1943 The company Ostindustrie GmbH established by the German SS organization; it was to act as the holding company for Jewish businesses in Lublin, Poland taken over by the SS.

12 Mar 1943 German occupation authorities in the Netherlands ordered Jews residing in eight of the country's eleven provinces to be deported to the Vught (Hertogenbosch) Concentration Camp.

13 Mar 1943 The Kraków Ghetto in Poland was liquidated.

15 Mar 1943 Greek Jews from Salonika and Thrace were deported to concentration camps.

22 Mar 1943 Crematorium 4 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

23 Mar 1943 A group of Greek Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

30 Mar 1943 A transport of 2,501 Jews from Thessaloniki, Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 312 men and 141 women were registered, while the remaining 2,048 were gassed.

31 Mar 1943 Crematorium 2 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

4 Apr 1943 The German SS Central Construction Office reported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp that Crematorium V had been completed in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and its administration was now turned over to the camp administration. According to the firm that built the crematorium, J. A. Topf und Söhne, it had the capacity to cremate 768 bodies each day.

9 Apr 1943 The German government re-designated Majdanek from a labor camp to a concentration camp.

9 Apr 1943 The Chelmno Concentration Camp in Reichsgau Wartheland, Germany (occupied Poland) temporarily ceased its extermination operations.

9 Apr 1943 German officially renamed Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland to Lublin Concentration Camp (Konzentrationslager Lublin).

11 Apr 1943 SS doctors at concentration camps were given orders to select prisoners to be sent to Hartheim Castle in Austria to be euthanized.

11 Apr 1943 Chelmno Concentration Camp in occupied Poland ceased operations.

18 Apr 1943 A transport of 2501 Jews from the ghetto in Thessaloniki, Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Only 605 were registered into the camp; the remaining 1,896 were sent to the gas chambers.

22 Apr 1943 A transport of Jews from Westerbork Concentration Camp arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Sudetenland in southern Germany (occupied Czechoslovakia).

27 Apr 1943 The German Inspector of Concentration Camps ordered that only the mentally ill prisoners could be gassed via the Aktion T-4 Euthaniasia Program.

30 Apr 1943 The construction for the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in northwestern Germany began.

8 May 1943 German government issued the order that deaths of Eastern European workers in the concentration camps only need to be reported to labor offices.

20 May 1943 The women's camp in Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland reported that it had 20,635 female prisoners (9,337 with working assignments, 4,510 without working assignments, and 6,788 unable to work).

20 May 1943 Esterwegen Concentration Camp established a special camp named "Süd" (South) to hold prisoners transferred under the Nacht und Nebel program.

24 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Josef Mengele arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He was soon to begin experiments on prisoners.

25 May 1943 507 men and 528 women of the Gypsy camp in Birkenau of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp system, most of whom were from Poland and Austria, were gassed. At least several hundred of them were sick, many of whom with typhus, thus giving the camp authorities to write off their deaths as natural.

26 May 1943 The German government issued the order to stop assigning concentration camp victims sequantial identification numbers in order to hide the true number of deaths.

30 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele became the doctor for the Gypsy Family Camp (Sector BIIe) of Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland.

3 Jun 1943 German forces discovered 150 Jews hiding in a bunker in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. They went on to destroy the bunker and killed all people within.

12 Jun 1943 Germans liquidated the Jewish Ghetto in Berezhany in western Ukraine. 1,180 Jews were led to the city's old Jewish graveyard and killed.

18 Jun 1943 Fritz Ritterbusch was assigned to Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

22 Jun 1943 Stutthof Concentration Camp conducted its first gassing, killing many Polish and and Byelorussian prisoners.

23 Jun 1943 All Jewish ghettos in the Galicia region of southeastern Poland and Ukraine were liquidated; 430,329 Jews were deported from this region.

25 Jun 1943 Jews in the ghetto of Czestochowa, Poland revolted; German authorities destroyed the ghetto in response.

25 Jun 1943 Crematorium III began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The camp now had the capacity of cremating 4,756 bodies per day.

25 Jun 1943 The German Foreign Ministry representative in the Netherlands reported that 102,000 of the 140,000 Dutch Jews had been deported.

3 Jul 1943 The German SS organization took direct control of Drancy internment camp in Paris, France, installing Alois Brunner as the commandant.

14 Jul 1943 At Krasnodar in southern Russia, the Soviets began a trial of 11 Germans accused of the murder of 7,000 civilians by gas vans, shootings, and hangings.

19 Jul 1943 12 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz I camp were executed by hanging in front of the kitchen during roll call for helping three fellow prisoners escape. The men were Stanislaw Stawinski (No. 6569), Czeslaw Marcisz (No. 26891), Janusz Skrzetuski-Pogonowski (No. 253), Edmund Sikorski (No. 25419), Jerzy Wozniak (No. 35650), Józef Wojtyga (No. 24740), Zbigniew Foltanski (No. 41664), Boguslaw Ohrt (No. 367), Leon Rajzer (No. 399), Tadeusz Rapacz (No. 36043), Józef Gancarz (No. 24538), and Mieczyslaw Kulikowski (No. 25404).

20 Jul 1943 German government reports dated this date indicated that, since 2 Mar 1943, there had been 20 transports of Jews from the Netherlands to Sobibór Concentration Camp, totaling over 34,000 persons; only 19 of these deportees survived the Holocaust.

24 Jul 1943 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was executed in the washroom of Block 11 at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

2 Aug 1943 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's special camp for Roma people was liquidated; 2,897 prisoners were gassed.

2 Aug 1943 200 Jews revolted in Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, burning down several buildings, and attempted to escape; camp guards found and killed most of them.

6 Aug 1943 German SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier gave his subordinates time off from 1300 hours on 7 Aug 1945 to end of the day of 8 Aug 1945 to recognize the work his men accomplished during the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos in Bedzin and Sosnowiec in the Silesia region of Germany (occupied Poland).

10 Aug 1943 A transport of about 3,000 arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from the liquidated ghetto in Sosnowiec, Poland. 110 men and 195 were registered into the camp; the remainder were killed in the gas chambers. On the same day, Auschwitz received 754 sewing machines from the liquidated ghetto of Bedzin, Poland.

11 Aug 1943 Jews from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia began to be transported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

16 Aug 1943 Starting this date and continuing for the next seven days, revolt and destruction took place in the Bialystok Ghetto in Poland.

21 Aug 1943 The authorities at the Birkenau women's camp at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland selected 498 Jewish women considered unable to work for the gas chamber; 438 of them were Greeks.

24 Aug 1943 1,260 Polish Jewish children from the liquidated Bialystok ghetto in Poland arrived at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia.

8 Sep 1943 A transport of 5,006 Jews (2,293 men and boys, 2,713 women and girls) from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. They were housed in the BIIb sector.

9 Sep 1943 5,006 Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia arrived at the newly created Familienlager-Theresienstadt family camp in sector BIIb of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland.

11 Sep 1943 German authorities raided Jews in Nice, France.

11 Sep 1943 Jewish ghettos in Byelorussian cities of Minsk and Lida were liquidated over the next 3 days.

23 Sep 1943 The Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania was liquidated.

25 Sep 1943 All Jewish ghettos in Byelorussia were liquidated.

27 Sep 1943 One of the Nazi officials in Rome demanded that the Jewish community pay one hundred pounds of gold within thirty-six hours or three hundred Jews would be taken prisoner. The Vatican would open its treasury to help the Jews reach the required amount.

1 Oct 1943 220 Danish Jews were arrested by the Gestapo.

2 Oct 1943 Orders were given by the German government to deport Danish Jews to concentration camps.

5 Oct 1943 1,196 Polish Jewish children originally from the liquidated Bialystok ghetto in Poland were transferred from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

7 Oct 1943 German artist Charlotte Salomon, who had married a French Jew, was deported from Drancy concentration camp in Paris, France for Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

14 Oct 1943 Prisoners at Sobibór concentration camp in occupied Poland, led by Byelorussian Jew Alexander Pechersky, killed 11 SS officers and seized the armory. 158 prisoners were killed during this action. Of those who succeeded in escaping, 53 were killed outside the camp, and 107 were captured and executed. Only 58 avoided capture; many of them would join partisan units.

16 Oct 1943 More than 1,000 Italian Jews from Rome were sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

18 Oct 1943 Italian Jews from Rome began to be deported to concentration camps.

21 Oct 1943 1,007 Jews from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. There were 87 children, 407 men and women under the age of 50 and 207 older people. After the selection 347 men and 170 women were registered. The other 409 were killed in the gas chambers.

22 Oct 1943 Block 11 of Auschwitz I concentration camp held a trial that sentenced 76 men and 19 women to death; they had been transferred from the prison in Myslowitz. The trial was presided by the new head of the Kattowitz Gestapo, SS-Obersturbanfuehrer Johannes Thümmler, who was never punished after the war and passed away in old age in May 2002.

23 Oct 1943 A transport of prisoners from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp arrived at Gas Chamber II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. In the undressing room, one of the Jewish women seized SS man Josef Schillinger's pistol and shot Schillinger and another guard, Wilhelm Emmerich. Other prisoners joined in to attack other guards, but the SS eventually took control of the situation. Schillinger died on the way to the hospital; Emmerich survived the wound, but became permanently disabled.

26 Oct 1943 The human collection at the University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France was destroyed, as reported by the scientists who performed research on them for the Nazi regime. In actuality, there was not enough time to destroy the entire collection, and a few cadavers were hidden, to be found later.

31 Oct 1943 Martin Gottfried Weiss stepped down as the commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.

1 Nov 1943 Martin Gottfried Weiss was named the commandant of Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland, succeeding Max Koegel.

2 Nov 1943 1,870 Jews from labor camp in Szopienice, Katowice, Poland arrived at Auschwitz. 463 men and 28 women were registered into the camp; the rest were sent to the gas chambers.

3 Nov 1943 A transport of 1,203 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from a slave camp from Szopienice in southern Poland. 284 men and 23 women were registered into the camp; the remaining 896 were sent to a gas chamber.

3 Nov 1943 Jewish ghettos at Riga, Latvia were liquidated.

3 Nov 1943 During the German Aktion Erntefest, Jewish prisoners were beginning to be massacred at Trawniki, Poniatowa, and Majdanek Concentration Camps; when the aktion was completed on the following day, 42,000 would be dead.

11 Nov 1943 Liebehenschel became the new commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp as his predecessor, Höss, was promoted to become the chief inspector of concentration camps. A report dated on this date noted that the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camps and all subcamps was 54,673 men and 33,179 women, for the total of 87,852 prisoners.

11 Nov 1943 Theresienstadt Concentration Camp commandant Anton Burger ordered the 40,000 prisoners of the camp to stand at attention outdoors in freezing weather; about 300 prisoners died from hypothermia.

19 Nov 1943 En route to a gas chamber at Auschwitz II in Poland, Bina Braun and Rosa Theberger attempted to escape but was caught and shot, and the rest were gassed. The list of 394 prisoners killed on this day was stolen and smuggled to the resistance leader in Auschwitz I camp, who sent the list on to Krakow, Poland on 21 Nov and then to London, England, United Kingdom.

20 Nov 1943 Jews in northern Italy were ordered to be sent to concentration camps.

1 Dec 1943 Arthur Liebehenschel became the second commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.

2 Dec 1943 The first transport of Jews from Vienna arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

5 Dec 1943 German forces began a week-long operation to deport Jews from Bialystok, Poland. While about 10,000 were deported, unknown thousands of Jews were able to hide. 700 were killed while resisting. Most of those deported were sent to Treblinka, Majdanek, or Auschwitz Concentration Camps.

8 Dec 1943 A transport of 55 Berlin Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. After the selection, 14 were registered and 31 were gassed.

16 Dec 1943 The chief surgeon at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland reported that 106 castration operations had been performed on prisoners.

20 Dec 1943 The Rapportführer of the quarantine camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration camp (Sector BIIa) gave an order to flog the whole first row of prisoners for too little springy posture at the roll call, which took place during the cold wind and falling snow. Four prisoners were then transferred to the camp hospital due to the flogging.

25 Dec 1943 By this date in 1943, there were a total of 86,919 prisoners in the Auschwitz camp system in occupied Poland, 56,595 of whom were men and 30,324 were women.

31 Dec 1943 As of this date, Auschwitz Concentration Camp had a population of 85,298 prisoners (55,785 men and 29,513 women). In the month of Dec 1943, 5,748 male and 8,931 female registered prisoners died at Auschwitz; these numbers did not include those killed in gas chambers immediately after arriving without being registered.

4 Jan 1944 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, SS Doctor Eduard Wirths notified fellow medical officers at Auschwitz III-Monowitz that, as of this date, corpses of deceased prisoners should be identified and then sent directly to the crematoria, bypassing the previous procedure of sending the corpses to the morgue at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau first. Death reports, however, must still be filed at the orderly room of prisoners' hospital in Auschwitz I by noon time of the same day that the corpses were sent to the crematoria.

10 Jan 1944 A transport of 259 Jews from Stutthof Concentration Camp departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

10 Jan 1944 French police arrested 228 Jews in and near Bordeaux and rounded them up at the Bordeaux synagogue.

11 Jan 1944 Several hundred Spanish Jews arrested in Greece and imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp were returned to Spain.

12 Jan 1944 1,000 Jews from Stutthof Concentration Camp arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 120 men and 134 women were registered into the camp while 746 were gassed upon arrival.

21 Jan 1944 600 prisoners deemed "invalid" were executed by gunfire at Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

23 Jan 1944 180 prisoners deemed "invalid" were executed by gunfire at Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

29 Jan 1944 A transport of 245 prisoners sent by the Bialystok Gestapo arrived at Stutthof concentration camp.

1 Feb 1944 A new satellite camp of Auschwitz III (Monowitz), located at the Guenthergrube in Ledziny, Poland opened. This new satellite camp would house 300 prisoners for coal mining for the German industrial firm I. G. Farben.

2 Feb 1944 A transport from Trieste, Italy arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Most of the prisoners were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival.

3 Feb 1944 The Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France sent its 67th transport for Auschwitz Concentration Camp with more than 1,000 Jews.

6 Feb 1944 A transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 999 of the 1,214 Jews were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival; only 166 men and 49 women were registered into the camp.

9 Feb 1944 The German Foreign Ministry in the Hague reported back to Berlin that to date 108,000 Jews had been deported from the Netherlands. The Dutch population considered German methods brutal, and church circles were actively promoting disapproval for the deportations.

14 Feb 1944 Heinrich Himmler's orders to re-establish the Chelmno Concentration Camp in occupied Poland was received by German officials of Reichsgau Wartheland; the camp resumed extermination in May 1944.

15 Feb 1944 1,500 prisoners arrived at Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria from Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

19 Feb 1944 141 Libyan Jews held at the Fossoli transit camp near Modena, Italy were deported to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany.

22 Feb 1944 Auschwitz III commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz ordered that night shift workers not be assigned to do any day shift work, the prisoners be given seven to eight hours of rest per day, and roll call be limited to five to ten minutes; his motivations were to maintain a high level of productivity from the forced laborers in his camp. On this date a total of 73,669 prisoners were in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp; Auschwitz I housed 17,177 male prisoners, Auschwitz II housed 18,378 male and 24,637 female prisoners, and Auschwitz III housed 13,477 male prisoners.

22 Feb 1944 In Italy, 650 Italian Jews were embarked onto a train at the Fossoli transit camp near Carpi, Modena for Auschwitz; many of them would be sent to the gas chambers upon arrival on 26 Feb 1944.

23 Feb 1944 39 Polish boys between the age of 13 to 17 originally from the Zamosc region were brought from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to block 20 at Auschwitz I. They were told that they would be trained to be nurses, but that evening they were killed with phenol heart injections given by SS-Unterscharführer Scherpe.

26 Feb 1944 650 Italian Jews from Fossoli transit camp near Carpi, Modena and 84 Soviet prisoners of war from the Lamsdorf (Lambinowice, Poland) POW camp arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Of the Italian Jews, 95 men and 29 women were registered into the camp; the remaining 526 were sent to the gas chambers.

2 Mar 1944 421 Czech prisoners were transferred from Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.

3 Mar 1944 A transport of 1,390 prisoners, mostly Latvians and Russians, was sent from Stutthof Concentration Camp to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

4 Mar 1944 750 Jews from the Łódź ghetto were sent to the Hugo Schneider AG factories in Czestochowa, Poland as forced laborers.

5 Mar 1944 732 Jews from the Westerbork transit camp arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. 477 of them were sent to the gas chambers without being registered into the camp.

5 Mar 1944 Auschwitz-Birkenau camp officials decided to gas the Czech Jews of Theresienstadt camp (sector BIIb). They were given postcards post-dated 25-27 Mar 1944 with pre-printed message "we are healthy and fine" and were told to sign them. These prisoners were gassed on 8 Mar 1944 and the postcards were mailed after 25 Mar.

7 Mar 1944 38 Jews hiding at 84 Grojecka Street, Warsaw, Poland were arrested. The 6 Polish non-Jews who provided them food and shelter were also arrested. Historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, among those arrested, was executed within the next few days.

7 Mar 1944 The 69th transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 1,501 prisoners. It would arrive at Auschwitz on 10 Mar and 1,311 of them would be gassed upon arrival.

7 Mar 1944 Germans arrested Jewish hospices at Turin, Italy and sent them to the Fossoli transit camp. Many of them would be sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland later in the month.

8 Mar 1944 3,791 Czech Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland. The men were killed in Crematorium III and the women and children in Crematorium II.

9 Mar 1944 Gusen II, a satellite of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, opened at Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Austria. Prisoners of Gusen II were used to build underground aircraft and weapons factories.

10 Mar 1944 1,501 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris. 110 men and 80 women were registered into the camp, while the remaining 1,311 were sent to the gas chambers.

11 Mar 1944 About 300 Jewish women and children of Split, Yugoslavia were rounded up, sent to Jasenovac Concentration Camp, and killed.

13 Mar 1944 The Jewish ghetto of Kraków, Poland was closed down; as its residents were deported to the newly built Plaszów labor camp, 2,000 died en route.

18 Mar 1944 At 1100 hours, Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner Rudolf Friemel married forced laborer Margarita Ferrer at the camp's Registry Office. It was the only case where a prisoner was allowed to marry in the camp. They had met in Spain when Rudolf Friemel, an Austrian, fought as a volunteer for the Spanish Republicans in the civil war. Friemel was executed by hanging on 30 Dec 1944 for a failed attempt to escape Auschwitz. Ferrer and their child survived the war.

24 Mar 1944 200 prisoners deemed "invalid" were executed by gunfire at Majdanek Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.

25 Mar 1944 184 Jews who had been recently arrested from their hiding places in the Hague in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

25 Mar 1944 The Hungarian Council of Ministers approved several anti-Semitic policies, including a law requiring Jews to wear the yellow Star of David to be effective on 5 Apr 1944.

28 Mar 1944 About 300 patients from two hospitals and one psychiatric institution in Trieste, Italy were deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

4 Apr 1944 A transport from two hospitals and one psychiatric institution in Trieste, Italy arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; 62 of the about 300 patients died en route, while another 103 were gassed upon arrival.

4 Apr 1944 In Poland, the first Allied aerial photographs were taken of Auschwitz I camp, the town of Auschwitz (known as Oswiecim in Polish), the I. G. Farben factories, and the Auschwitz III camp complex (also known as Monowitz).

5 Apr 1944 The SS Economic and Administrative Office submitted a report to the Supreme Command of the German SS organization noting the existence of 20 concentration camps with 165 connected labor camps. In Hungary, Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David.

5 Apr 1944 Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and made it safely to Czechoslovakia; he warned the Elders of the Council at Theresienstadt about the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz.

6 Apr 1944 SS-Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie raided a children's home in Izieu, France, arresting 7 adults and 44 Jewish children.

7 Apr 1944 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; they would cross the border to Slovakia three days later.

7 Apr 1944 44 Jewish children and their 7 adult caretakers, arrested in a children's home in Izieu, France on the previous day, arrived at Drancy concentration camp. They all would later be deported to Auschwitz in Poland for their execution by gassing.

10 Apr 1944 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who had escaped from Auschwitz Concentration Camp three days prior, arrived in Slovakia. They would later revealing information about the camp to outside world via the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia.

13 Apr 1944 Drancy Concentration Camp in France dispatched its 71st convoy with 1,500 Jews for Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

14 Apr 1944 The first transports of Greek Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp departed from Athens, Greece. On the same date, a transport of 500 prisoners was sent from Stutthof Concentration Camp to Neuengamme Concentration Camp. In France, mass arrests of Jews were ordered; to provide incentive for civilians to aid this effort, payments were offered to those who led authorities to Jews in hiding.

16 Apr 1944 A transport of 1,500 Jews from Drancy Concentration Camp outside of Paris arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it was the 71st transport from Drancy to Auschwitz. 165 men and 223 women were registered into the camp, while the remaining 1,112 were gassed.

25 Apr 1944 The Emsland concentration camps in Germany established the Kommandos Nord (Department North), which began to construct concentration camps in Norway north of the Arctic Circle; 1,404 prisoners were transferred there when completed.

2 May 1944 Two transports arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp with 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary and 2,000 from Topolya, Yugoslavia. 1,102 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 2,698 were sent 