Timeline

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30.01.1933

NSDAP comes to power in Germany

Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor. Nazi’s begin to implement their racist policies

22.03.1933

Estasblishment of Dachau Concentration Camp

First Concentration Camp is established outside of the town of Dachau to incarcerate political opponents.

09.11.1938

Kristallnacht

First large scale violence against Jewish population with the destruction of hundreds of synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses looted by rioters,cemeteries desecrated.

01.09.1939

Aktion T4

Nazi Euthanasia Program to kill people with mental and physical disabilities.

20.05.1940

Establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp

SS authorities establish the Auschwitz camp, largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime.

29.09.1941

Babi Yar: actions of the Einsatzgruppen

One of the largest massacres of World War II taking place outside of Kyiv, with 33,771 Jews massacred in two days.

15.10.1941

Operation Reinhard

Nazi plan to murder the Jews residing in the so-called General Governmen: deadliest phase of Holocaust leading to the death of 1,7 million people.

08.12.1941

Chelmno: mass murder with gas vans

First large scale use of gas for murder at the Chelmno killing center, located about 30 miles northwest of Lodz.

20.01.1942

Wansee Conference

Conference to discuss the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question

19.04.1943

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Armed uprising of Jews within the ghetto, which lasted for almost a month.

14.10.1943

Sobibor Uprising

Uprising of inmates, several people manage to escape.

23.07.1944

Liberation of Lublin-Majdanek

First major concentration camp to be liberated by Soviet Forces, while most of the prisoners had been evacuated.

23.11.1944

Allied Troops arrive at the Naztweiler-Struthof camp

Allied forces discover an abandoned camp in annexed Alsace.

17.01.1945

First Death March from Auschwitz

Inmates marched from camp to prevent them being liberated. Many prisoners died as a result.

27.01.1945

Liberation of Auschwitz

Soviet Army enter the camps and liberate around 7,000 prisoners.

11.04.1945

Liberation of Dora-Mittelbau and Buchenwald camps

Liberation by US forces of both camps the same day. In Buchenwald, prisoners at taken control of the camp prior to the arrival of the Americans.

15.04.1945

Liberation of Bergen-Belsen

Liberation by British forces of approximately 60,000 prisoners.

20.04.1945

Prisoners' evacuation from Sachsenhausen

SS camp guards begin the forced evacuation on foot of 33,000 prisoners. On April 22, Polish troops under Soviet command liberated about 3,000 remaining inmates in the camp.

29.04.1945

Liberation of Dachau

Liberation by US forces of approximately 32,000 prisoners.

30.04.1945

Liberation of Ravensbrück

Liberation by Soviet forces, after having liberated prisoners being evacuated on foot.

05.05.1945

Liberation of Mauthausen

Area secured by US troops while the camp had been administered by an “International Committee” formed by prisoners themselves.

20.11.1945

International Military Tribunal Nuremberg

Start of the Nuremberg trials with 21 major Nazi leaders.

24.11.1947

First Auschwitz Trial

Trial held against former camp personel by the Polish Government.

27.01.2006

First International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Remembrance day was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 01 November 2005.

Photo captions and copyrights

  1. President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler, 1933. © Bettmann/CORBIS
  2. The Dachau camp under construction. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  3. Germans pass by the broken shop window of a Jewish-owned business that was destroyed during Kristallnacht. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
  4. Several boys with Down Syndrome who are being held at the Heilanstalt Schönbrunn sanatorium near Dachau concentration camp on Feb. 16, 1934. © Friedrich Franz Bauer/German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons
  5. View of the main entrance to the Auschwitz camp: “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes one free). © Polish Institute of National Remembrance
  6. Soviet POWs being used by Germany to cover the mass grave after the massacre, 1 October 1941. © https://history.kby.kiev.ua/publication/illu_b15.html
  7. Deportation of Polish Jews to Treblinka extermination camp from the ghetto in Siedlce, 1942, Poland during German occupation. © Polish Institute of National Remembrance
  8. Magirus Deutz truck. At the Kulmhof camp, this type of carts was converted into mobile gas chambers. © Jewish Historical Institute
  9. Wannsee villa in 1942. © Wannsee Conference Centre, Place of Remembrance and Historical Education
  10. Jewish women and children forcibly removed from a bunker by Schutzstaffel (SS) units for deportation either to Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camps. Restored version of the photo from Jürgen Stroop Report to Heinrich Himmler from May 1943. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  11. View of the camp in summer 1943. © Wikimedia Commons
  12. Charred remains of corpses near crematoria in the Majdanek camp, after liberation. Poland, after July 22, 1944. © Deutsche Fotothek
  13. Barracks in the quarry camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. © ⁠US Holocaust Memorial Museum
  14. A group of prisoners marches from Dachau towards the interior of the Reich. https://auschwitz.net/
  15. Liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. © Wikimedia Commons
  16. Liberation of the Boelcke Barracka concentration camp in Nordhausen, 1945. © Concentration Camp Memorial Mittelbau-Dora
  17. The Liberation Of Bergen-Belsen 15 April 1945. © Imperial War Museum
  18. Prisoners in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, Germany, 19 December 1938. © Wikimedia Commons
  19. Execution of SS troops in a coalyard in the area of Dachau concentration camp during the liberation of the camp. © Wikimedia Commons
  20. Four Polish women arrive at the Nuremberg train station to serve as prosecution witnesses at the Doctors Trial. From left to right are Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Maria Kuśmierczuk, and Władysława Karolewska. December 15, 1946. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  21. Emaciated, inmates at Mauthausen concentration camp after liberation. © IWM (EA 65915)
  22. The judges’ bench at the time of the International Military Tribunal. © Nuremberg Municipal Archives
  23. The Auschwitz trial in Kraków, Maria Mendel, a defendant from the guards’ staff. © Yad Vashem
  24. https://usoas.usmission.gov/