The Holocaust timeline

Sepia photograph of a smiling young girl in a checked dress standing in front of a hedge, with pigeons at her feet.

Testimony extract

January 1933

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 Fraser

Black and white portrait photograph of Adolf Hitler in a Nazi party uniform.

Testimony extract

January 1933

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

Collage about Dachau: a receipt for 50 Reichsmark paid for winter clothes that Martin never received, a small leather case, and a view of Dachau concentration camp in winter.

Testimony extract

22 March 1933

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.

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

Extracted from Martin Anson

Testimony extract

23 March 1933

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

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Testimony extract

April 1933

The Sunday Morning March

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

Black and white photograph of a crowd gathered around a large fire of burning books at night.

Historical event

May 1933

Public Burning of “un-German” books.

In May 1933, Nazi German university students, supported by the Nazi government, burned tens of thousands of books they deemed “un-German,” including works by Jewish authors and those promoting leftist ideologies.

Adapted from United States Holocaust Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia

Black and white group photograph outdoors: six young women seated on the grass in front of seven standing men and women, taken in the 1940s.

Testimony extract

September 1935

Nürnberg Race Laws 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…….

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…..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

Testimony extract

1 January 1938

Pre War 1938

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

Life in Vienna

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

Black and white photograph of men in coats and uniformed SS guards standing in a courtyard in Vienna.

Historical event

August 1938

Adolf Eichmann establishes the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna

In August 1938, Adolf Eichmann opened the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. It transformed the persecution of Jews into a streamlined, bureaucratic "conveyor belt" designed to strip them of their assets and force them out of the country.

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)

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

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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

Colourised photograph of children in coats and hats at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, several holding suitcases. Bob McKenzie holds Edith Forrester’s hand, with his sister standing beside him.

Testimony extract

2 December 1938

Kindertransport

I’m not sure where we joined the train and to this day I have never found out. Unfortunately there is a complete blank from the time we were put on the train until we arrived at The Priory in Selkirk. …… this is possibly the only way a child of eight years old could cope with the trauma of this upheaval. To suddenly be torn from a happy, comfortable family life with loving parents, put on a train to nowhere and end up in a country where no one spoke my language, ……, must have been a severe shock to a young child.

Extract from Bob Mackenzie

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Historical event

January 1939

Hitler Announces in the Reichstag

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

Sepia photograph of a uniformed man with his arm raised on a stand, watching rows of German soldiers march past.

Testimony extract

1 September 1939

Germany 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

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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

The entrance gate of Auschwitz with the iron words Arbeit macht frei above it, and brick barracks and barbed wire behind.

Historical event

January 1940

Oswiecim (Auschwitz)

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

Historical event

June 1940

Global War

France is conquered in June 1940

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.

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…..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

Testimony extract

June 1941

Baghdad Pogrom 1941

June 1–2, 1941: The Farhud (Baghdad Pogrom) During the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, a violent pro-Nazi mob erupted in Baghdad following the collapse of a short-lived pro-Axis government.

Extract from Esperance David

Black and white photograph of a line of people standing beside a large pit in the snow.

Historical event

September 1941

Mass Extermination

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

Black and white photograph of thick black smoke rising from burning ships at Pearl Harbor.

Historical event

7 December 1941

United States Enters the War

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

Historical event

20 January 1942

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.

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The Wannsee Conference In a villa outside Berlin, high-ranking Nazi officials met to coordinate the "Final Solution." Led by Reinhard Heydrich, they organized the systematic deportation and murder of 11 million Jews across Europe. Crucially for your family’s story, this meeting officially designated Theresienstadt as a "model" ghetto for elderly and prominent Jews, setting the stage for the mass transportations from Prague that began just weeks later.

Historical event

February 1943

First big defeat of German army

While the German Army suffered its first major turning-point defeat by surrendering at Stalingrad, the Nazi regime continued its internal campaign through the Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration. This office, run by the Security Police and the SD, was designed to systematically strip Jews of their assets and force their departure.

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Germany's first major defeat in World War II is often considered the Battle of Moscow (1941-1942), halting their blitzkrieg advance in the East and failing to take the capital, followed by the decisive loss at Stalingrad (1942-1943), a huge psychological and military turning point on the Eastern Front.

Black and white photograph of a parade float draped with a banner reading Norderney judenfrei, with uniformed men standing on it.

Historical event

May 1943

Judenfrei (free of Jews)

Nazis declare Berlin to be Judenfrei ( free of Jews)

Historical event

August 1943

Treblinka

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

Testimony extract

March 1944

German army occupies Hungary

Soon after the Nazis start sending Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz

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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

Black and white photograph of women and children in winter coats walking along a railway line, some wearing a star on their clothes.

Historical event

January 1945

Russian Army liberates Auschwitz

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

Sepia studio portrait of John J. Crosbie in British Army uniform and cap.

Testimony extract

April 1945

British forces to enter Bergen-Belsen

April 1945: The Liberation of Belsen John, a Scottish Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, was among the first British forces to enter Bergen-Belsen. His memoirs recount a scene of unimaginable chaos: 10,000 bodies lay unburied, and hundreds more died daily. Haunted by the horrors he witnessed and the unrepentant cruelty of the SS guards, John’s testimony remains a stark record of the camp’s liberation.

Extract from John J Crosbie

Black and white photograph of German soldiers with their hands raised in surrender in a city street.

Testimony extract

May 1945

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

Iron gate bearing the words Arbeit macht frei at the entrance of a concentration camp.

Testimony extract

December 1945

Post War 1945

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

Memorial in Vienna to Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust

9 November 2021: The Official Opening The Shoah Wall of Names Memorial is officially inaugurated in Ostarrichi Park, Vienna. This landmark serves to commemorate the more than 64,000 Jewish children, women, and men from Austria who were murdered during the Holocaust.

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Commemorative Ceremony and Speakers The ceremony features addresses by several prominent figures, including President Alexander Van der Bellen, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, and Vienna’s Mayor Michael Ludwig. They were joined by Oskar Deutsch, President of the Federal Association of Jewish Religious Communities, and Kurt Y. Tutter, the Holocaust survivor and initiator of the memorial.