Timeline 1933 30 January Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany 28 February German government takes away freedom of speech, assembly, press, and freedom from invasion of privacy (mail, telephone, telegraph) and from house search without warrant. 4 March Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated President of the United States 20 March First concentration camp opens at Dachau, Germany, for political opponents of the regime. 1 April Nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany is carried out under Nazi leadership. 7 April Law excludes “non-Aryans” from government employment; Jewish civil servants, including university professors and schoolteachers, are fired in Germany. 10 May Books written by Jews, political opponents of Nazis, and many others are burned during huge public rallies across Germany. 14 July Law passed in Germany permitting the forced sterilization of Gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled, African-Germans, and others considered “inferior” or “unfit”. 1934 October First major wave of arrests of homosexuals occurs throughout Germany, continuing into November. 1935 17 March Hitler’s army invades the Rhineland. April Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned from all civil service jobs and are arrested throughout Germany. 15 September Nuremberg Laws “of “Blood and Honor” Citizenship and racial laws are announced at Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, and begin to be instituted. 1936 12 July First German Gypsies are arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp. Summer Olympic Games take place in Berlin. Anti-Jewish signs are removed until the Games are over. 1938 13 March Austria is annexed by Germany. 6-15 July Representatives from thirty-two countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee policies. Most of the countries refuse to let in more Jewish refugees. 9-10 November Nazis burn almost one thousand synagogues and loot Jewish homes and businesses in nationwide pogroms called “Kristallnacht” (Night of Broken Glass). Nearly 30,000 German and Austrian Jewish men are deported to concentration camps. Many Jewish women are jailed. 15 November All Jewish children are expelled from public schools. Segregated Jewish schools are created. 2-3 December All Gypsies in the Reich are required to register with the police. 1939 15 March German troops invade Czechoslovakia. June Cuba and the United States refuse to accept Jewish refugees aboard the ship S.S. St. Louis, which is forced to return to Europe. 1 September Germany invades Poland; World War II begins. October Hitler extends power of doctors to kill institutionalized mentally and physically disabled persons in the “euthanasia” program. 1940 Spring Germany invades and defeats Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and France. October Warsaw ghetto is established. 1941 22 March Gypsy and African-German children are expelled from public schools in the Reich. 24 March Germany invades North Africa. 6 April German invades Yugoslavia and Greece. 22 June German army invades the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads, begin mass murders of Jews, Gypsies, and Communist leaders. 23 September Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners are killed in Nazi tests of gas chambers at Auschwitz in occupied Poland. 28-29 September Nearly 34,000 Jews are murdered by mobile killing squads at Babi Yar, near Kiev (Ukraine). October-November First group of German and Austrian Jews are deported to ghettos in eastern Europe. 7 December Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. 8 December Gassing operations begin at Chelmno “extermination” camp in occupied Poland. 11 December Germany declares war on the United States. 1942 20 January Fifteen Nazi and government leaders meet at Wannsee, a section of Berlin, to discuss the “final solution to the Jewish question”.

1942 Nazi “extermination” camps located in occupied Poland at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Majdanek begin mass murder of Jews in gas chambers. 1 June Jews in France and Holland are required to wear identifying stars. 1943 19 April Britain and United States meet at Bermuda Conference 19 April-16 May Jews in the Warsaw ghetto resist with arms the Germans’ attempt to liquidate the ghetto. 2 August Inmates revolt at Treblinka Fall Danes use boats to smuggle most of the nation’s Jews to neutral Sweden. 14 October Inmates at Sobibor begin armed revolt. 1944 January President Roosevelt sets up the War Refugee Board at the urging of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. 19 March Germany occupies Hungary. 15 May-9 July Over 430,000 Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them are gassed. 6 June Allied powers invade western Europe on D-Day. 20 July German officers fail in their attempt to assassinate Hitler. 23 July Soviet troops liberate Majdanek concentration camp. 2 August Nazis destroy the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau; around 3,000 Gypsies are gassed. 7 October Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt and blow up one crematorium. 1945 17 January Nazis evacuate Auschwitz; prisoners begin “death marches” toward Germany. 27 January Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz. April US troops liberate survivors at Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps. 30 April Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin. 5 May US troops liberate Mauthausen concentration camp. 7 May Germany surrenders and the war ends in Europe. November 1945- War crime trials held at Nuremberg, Germany. October 1946 1948 14 May State of Israel is established.