The Holocaust Timeline

Ruth Fraser – Life Before the War

Her Parents ran a kosher butcher shop and this kosher butcher shop until 1933 when the Nazis came to power. The shop had to be closed….. They had no income.

Extract from Ruth Frazer

Adolf Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany

‘Yes, well, Hitler came to power in January l933, by April l933, somewhere around ll or l2 o’clock, …, the Storm Troopers appeared in our business, declared all of us, my father, our relative ……my cousin …..my business partner, and myself as ….having to be taken into what they called “schutzhaft” or protective custody.

Extract from Martin Anson

Dachau Concentration Camp Opens

I think it was Block l6, where we were allocated. It was huts which were constructed to hold probably between 70 and 100 people, and there were about 250-300 people in each hut, so we were sleeping, partly on bunks, partly on the floor, on straw, so obviously, there was not much sleeping at night, because we were lying across each other.

Martin Anson was arrested on Kristallnacht and imprisoned In Dachau Concentration Camp

Extracted from Martin Anson

Enabling Act is passed Hitler given dictatorial powers

To the best of my recollection, remember I was 9 years old, 10 years old; and Polish Jews, foreign Jews knew they were in for a hard time under Hitler who had come to power in ’33

Extract from Bob Kutner

Well, I remember that the SA [Sturmabteilung or Brownshirts, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party]. It used to be on a Sunday morning march through the street and people always stood and watched and so on and [shouted] Heil Hitler and all that. And the young people of my own age, they joined in singing and it was all very jolly, but I mean, for them.  So … usually, we kept out of the way when they marched through.

Extracted from Karola Regent

Public Burning of “un-German” books.

including works by Robert Burns

Nuremberg Race Laws are passed

So my mother’s grandmother was Jewish and her mother, Paula Lamb, was christened into the Catholic faith, which I think was fairly common when people married into a different religion…….

…..The Nazis had introduced with the Nuremberg laws in 1935 I think it was. Some sort of pseudo scientific methodology to decide how much of a Jew you are in blood. And it depended on how many…INT: What was it they called this? They had a special name didn’t they? For such people. Is it mischling?

Extract from Saskia Tepe

Gretl Shapiro

Before the War – German Army marches into Austria

You know, I remember coming home from school and seeing an old man having to scrub the floor, the pavement and a whole lot of brownshirts, you know the Nazis, standing round poking him with rifles and oh everybody laughing and jeering.

Extract from Gretl Shapiro

Adolf Eichmann establishes

the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna

Kristallnacht
(Night of Broken Glass)

This is a co-ordinated attack on Jews and their property thought Germany

Now I realise it was probably the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life, but nobody paid any attention to me, and of course when I saw what was happening, I went home. But I saw the synagogue was burning, the fire had spread to the roof of the school, and the fire brigade standing by making sure that none of the non-Jewish property was on fire,

….and everybody looking at it and enjoying themselves. The non-Jews I mean. And I just went back home. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that this had been part of a, a major attack on the Jewish…

Extract from Isi Metzstein

Kindertransport

First Group of Kinder transport children arrive at Harwich, Great Britain

The British Parliament was approached by the ‘Movement for the Care of Children of Germany’ to hasten the travel permits.

The funds were to be found to guarantee £50.00 (roughly £1000.00 in today’s money) for every child brought to this country by Kindertransport. By the time the war started in September ’39 it is estimated that 10,000 children were brought to safety in this country.

Considering that the average wage at that time was under £3.00 per week, this was a truly momentous fundraising exercise.

Extract from Bob Mackenzie

Hitler Announces in the Reichstag that the outbreak of war will mean the end of European Jewry

German invades Poland

The Army invades Poland. Start of Second World war. Jewish citizens of Poland number 3.3 million, about 10% of the total population

And so we never went home from the holiday house we went east, variously by train to begin with and then by horse and cart and in various ways. And being bombed on the way by the German planes, you know coming down and finally we got to this estate where my Aunt was.

Extract from Marion Camrass

Global War

France is conquered in June 1940
Russia is attacked in June 1941
USA enters war in Dec 1941
Hungary occupied from March 1944

Oswiecim (Auschwitz)

Nazis choose town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland as site for new concentration camp

German Army invades Russia Mass murders of Jews begin in Soviet territories

When the Germans came in they made him head of the Judenrat and then of course he was supposed to choose the usual thing, 50 people to go and do some work, dig trenches basically intended for the graves of the people.

…..He apparently said to the officer “You want to do the dirty job do it yourself”. So the man took out a pistol and shot him. So my father was in fact the first man to be shot in our town by the Germans.

Extract from Moniek Garber

Mass Extermination

The First mass extermination at Auschwitz takes place. 900 inmates killed by gas.

United States Enters the War

Japanese navy attacks US base in Pearl Harbour; The United States enters the war

The Wannsee Conference

The Final Solution to the Jewish question is decided. The Jews of German-occupied Europe are to be deported to Poland and exterminated.

First Big defeat of Germany army

The German Army suffers its first big defeat, surrending to the Russian Army at Stalingrad,

Judenfrei (free of Jews)

Nazis declare Berlin to be Judenfrei ( free of Jews)

Treblinka

Murder by gassing ceases at Treblinka after about 870,000 deaths

Germany Army occupies Hungary

Soon after the Nazis start sending Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz

So they occupied Hungary on 15th March 1944 and it shows you for instance in the Warsaw Ghetto if you think about it, it took years for people to be sent to Auschwitz or any other of the death camps, but in Hungary from 15th March the Germans came in and by 17th or 18th June I was in Auschwitz so three months and three days, you know the speed of it.

Extract from Susan Singerman

Russian Army liberates Auschwitz

About 960,000 Jewish men, women and children were killed there.

And, because this was, we all seen, all the 500. So we were liberated, all the 500 of us. And I think it was one of the very few camps who were liberated without anybody dying

Extract from Judith Rosenberg

Germany surrenders unconditionally

And I suddenly felt I can shout it from the rooftops, “I am Jewish!” And if I were in a room that was full of people and somebody said, “Any Jews stand!” I would not even hesitate because I am so proud of my Jewish birth and that I had a Jewish mother that bore me.

Extract from Edith Forrester

Pre War 1938

Pre-War (1938) Jewish Population of Germany and the territories later conquered in Euripe and Russia number 8,861,800 people

Post War 1945

67% of European jews had been Killed – 5,933,900 victims

There were a lot of people shot and unfortunately I have nowhere to go to know where my parents actually were murdered.

Extract from John Subak-Sharpe