The Holocaust: Historical, Literary, and Cinematic Y, Timeline
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The Holocaust: Historical, Literary, and Cinematic Timeline (Note: Books and films are cited in the following formats: Books: Authorr, Tittle; Films: Tittle (Director, Country). For non-English language texts in all cases the standard English title has been used.) 1933 Januarry 30: Nazistake power March 9: concentration camp established at Dachau, outside Munich Appril1: state-sponsored boycott of Jewish shops and businesses 1935 May 21: Jews forbidden to serve in the German armed forces Septtember 15: promulgation of Nuremberg Laws 1936 June 17: Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler appointed head of all German police and security services 1938 March 12: Anschluss [union] of Austria; Austrian Jews immediately deprived of civil rights, subjected to Nazi race laws; by Septemberr, all Viennese Jewish busineses (33,000 in March) liquidated May: concentration camp established in the granite quarries at Mauthausen, near Linz (Hitler’s birthplace) June 9: main synagogue in Munich burnt down by Nazi stormtroopers Julyy–September: Jews forbidden to practice law or medicine October 6: Italy enacts anti-Semitic racial laws; 27: 18,000 Polish- born Jews deported to Poland November 10: Kristallnachtt; 191 synagogues fired; 91 Jews murdered; over 30,000 arrested; 20% of all Jewish property levied confiscated to paay for damage; 12: Göring orders the liquidation of all Jewish businesses by year’s end; 15: Jewish children banned from German schools December: no Jewish-owned businesses (of over 6,000 in 1933) remain in Berlin (Kathrine) Kressmann Taylor’s ‘Address Unknown’, published in Storry Magazine 1939 Januarry 30: in his annual speech commemorating the Nazi seizure of power, Hitler predicts that a new world war will result in “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe” March 15: Partition of Czechoslovakia: 118,000 more Jews fall under German dominion September 1: Germany invades Poland (Jewish population in 1939: approx. 3.5 million); 5,000 civilian Jews murdered before the end off October; 3: France and Britain declare war on Germany: start of World War II 156 Timeline 157 November 12: Jews expelled to the “General Government” (occupied Poland) from Polish areas incorporated into Greater Germany; 28: decree to establish Jewish Councils in all Polish Jewish communities December 11: all Jews in the General Government made liable totwo years’ (minimum) forced labour 1940 Februarry 8: Lodz Ghetto established April–June: concentration camp (Auschwitz I) established in former army barracks at Oswiecim [Auschwitz], near Cracow October 3: Warsaw Ghetto established November 28: Anti-Semitic propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew, Fritz Hippler) premieres in Berlin 1941 Januarry: Two thousand people a month are dying of starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto; 13: start of deportations of “work battalions” from the Lodz Ghetto to Chelmno June 22: “Operation Barbarossa”—Germany invades the USSR; German forces are specifically directed that Geneva conventions do not apply to Jews and Communists; within five weeks, more Jews killed by mobile Einsatzgrüppen and regular army units than in previous 8 years of Nazi rule Julyy 31: Göring, on Hitler’s behalf, directs Heydrich with finding “a complete solution to the Jewish question” September 3: 600 Soviet POWs gassed using Zyklon B at Auschwitz Camp I September 27–28: 34,000 Russian Jews machine-gunned to death at Babi Yar ravine, near Kiev October: deportations of Jews from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, to Polish ghettoes begin October 23––24: 35,000 Jews shot or burned alive in Odessa; 27–30: some 600 Jewish elderly in Kalisz, western Poland, killed by carbon monoxide gas November 24: Ghetto established at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia (the “paradise ghetto”) December 1: Einsattzkommando 3 reports that only 15% of Lithuanian Jews remain alive (34,000 of 234,000 in 1939); 7: gassing vans begin operation at Chelmno [Kulmhof]: at least 360,000 Jews killed byy end 1942 1942 Januarry 20: Wannsee conference to determine operational responsi- bility for “final solution of the Jewish question” Februarry: “Operation Reinhard” extermination camps established at Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor; first gassings of Jews using Zyklon B at Auschwitz-Birkenau March: gassings begin at Belzec; of 600,000 Jews deported by December 1942, onlyy 2 survive April: construction begins of extermination camp at Auschwitz- Birkenau; operations commence at Sobibor: 250,000 dead by December, 64 survivors 158 Timeline July: Treblinka operational: up to 850,000 dead by August 1943; around 80 survivors at war’s end 1943 April 18: Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins; by the final liquidation of the ghetto in May, 7,000 Jews killed in combat, 30,000 deported to Treblinka Auugust 2: 150 worker Jews (of 750) escape in uprising at Treblinka; camp later demolished October 13: 300 worker Jews (of 600) escape in uprising at Sobibor; camp closed 1944 March: deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begins Julyy 8: Hungarian deportations halted at insistence of Hungarian authorities under international pressure; 437,000 Jews have been deported to Auschwitz 1945 Januarry 18: evacuation of Auschwitz begins; “death marches” to Germany; 27: Russian troops enter Auschwitz April 2: a survivor of the Sobibor revolt murdered by anti-Semitic Poles; 15: British troops enter Belsen; 29: American troops enter Dachau; 30: Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker: in his political testament, he blames the Jews as the “guilty party” in the war May 8: Germany surrenders to the Allies Mayy–June: over 350 Jews are killed in anti-Semitic incidents in Poland 1946 Trial of leading Nazis at Nuremberg; 12 hanged for war crimes and crimes against humanity 1947 Primo Levi, If This Is a Man first edition published: poor sales Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneeys 1948 The Last Staage (Wanda Jakubowska, Pol) Borrder Sttreet (Aleksander Ford, Pol) 1951 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (first edition) 1953 Publication of The Diarry of Anne Frank 1955 Night and Foog (Alain Resnais, Fr) 1958 Elie Wiesel, Nigght 1959 André Schwartz-Bart, The Last of the Just wins Prix Goncourt 1960 Adolf Eichmann abducted from Buenos Aires by Mossad agents; tried in Jerusalem and executed for crimes against the Jewish people The Diarry of Anne Frank (George Stevens, US) 1961 Raul Hilberg, The Desttruction of the European Jewws Kittty Hart, I Am Alive 1963 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem Jorge Semprun Le Grrand Voyagge (The Long Voyagee) 1963–65 Trial of 21 Auschwitz SS officers in Frankfurt-am-Main 1964 Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputty 1965 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality off Evil The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, US) 1966 Jean-François Steinerr, Treblinka is a controversial bestseller in France Timeline 159 Jean Améry Jenseits Von Schuldd Und Sühne (At the Mind’’s Limits) Peter Weiss, The Investtigattion 1969 Jurek Beckerr, Jacob the Liar The Sorrow and the Pitty (Marcel Ophuls, Fr) 1973 Gitta Sereny, Into That Darrkness 1974 Jacob the Liar (Frank Beyer, GDR) 1976 Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen Imre Kertész, Sorstalansáág (Fatelessness) 1978 Holocaust mini-series broadcast on NBC (US); subsequent broadcast in West Germany provokes major shift in prevailing attitudes towards the Holocaust 1979 William Styron, Sophie’s Choice 1981 D. M. Thomas, The White Hotel Kitty Hart Return to Auschwitz 1982 Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, US) Thomas Kenneally, Schindler’s List (UK: Schindler’s Arrk) 1985 Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, Fr) 1986 Art Spiegelman, Maus: a Survivor’s Tale Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved War and Remembrance mini-series broadcast on ABC (US) Elie Wiesel awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1991 Martin Amis, Time’s Arrrow Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl Art Spiegelman, Maus II: “And Now My Troubles Really Began” Europa, Euroopa (Agnieszka Holland, Fr/Pol) 1993 Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, US): “Best Picture”, “Best Director”, “Best Adapted Screenplay” and 4 other Academy Awards US Holocaust Memorial Museum opens 1994 Don’t Touch My Holocaust (Asher Tlalim, Israel) Jorge Semprun, L’écriture ou la vie (LiteratureL or Life) 1996 Binjamin Wilkomirski, Fragments: Memories of a Childhood, 1939–1948 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’si Willing Executioners: Ordinarry Germans and the Holocaust is a highlyy controversial international bestseller 1997 Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces 1998 Life is Beauttiful (Roberto Benigni, It): “Best Original Screenplay” Academy Award Wladislaw Szpilman, The Pianist Wilkomirski’s Fragmentts exposed as fake 2000 Holocaust denier David Irving loses libel claimagainst Penguin Books Imperial War Museum opens permanent Holocaust exhibition 2001 Amen (Costa-Gavras, Fr/Germ) 2002 The Greey Zone (Tim Blake Nelson, US) Uprising (Jon Avnet, US) The Pianist (Roman Polanski, US-Fr): “Best Director”, “Best Actor” Academy Awards Jonathan Safran Foer, Everrything is Illuminatted 160 Timeline Holocaust survivor and Novelist Imre Kertesz wins Nobel Prize for Literature 2005 Fateless (Lajos Koltai, Hungary) 2006 Anthony Littell, Les Bienveillantes [The Kindly Ones] wins Prix Goncourt Further Reading Avisar, Ilan, Screening the Holocaust: Cinema’s Images of the Unimaginable (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988). The second (after Insdorf, see below) dedicated study of this field. More selective and hence in-depth than Insdorf, it also lacks real engagement with theoretical debates. Bannerr, Gillian, Holocaust Literature: Schulz, Levi, Spiegelman and the Memorry of the Offfence (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2000). A good account