DANIEL’S STORY TIMELINE OF HISTORICAL EVENTS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

Daniel is a composite character whose story is based upon the experiences of Jewish children who were born in Germany, sent to the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, and then deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

March 30, 1927 Daniel is born.

January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazi Party comes to Power.

April 1-3, 1933 Germans boycott shops and businesses that are owned by Jews, including Daniel’s father’s hardware store.

September 15, 1935 The Nuremberg Laws are passed to protect the “purity“ of the Aryan race. Daniel’s family is deprived of civil rights.

November 9 -10, 1938 Kristallnacht,the Night of Broken Glass. Daniel’s synagogue is burned, Jewish homes and businesses are vandalized, Jewish men are arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps.

September 1, 1939 World War II begins when Germany invades Poland. Curfew laws require Daniel and his family to stay in the house after nine o’clock at night.

October 18, 1941 Daniel’s family is deported to the Lodz ghetto in Poland. The ghetto was first established in December 1939.

December 7, 1941 The United States enters World War II.

June 6, 1944 Allied forces land in Normandy, France, in the D-Day invasion.

June 1944 Soon after D-Day, the Germans, afraid of defeat, order the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. Daniel and his family are deported from Lodz to Auschwitz- Birkenau in August.

November 1944 Daniel and his father are sent from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany.

April 11-12, 1945 Buchenwald is liberated by American troops.

May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders to the Allies. The Second World War is over.

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