Holocaust History Timeline: Poland
September 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland starting WWII.
November 23, 1939: Nazis force Jews in Poland to wear a yellow star badge and the first ghetto is established in the Polish town of Piotrkow.
May 1-7, 1940: Lodz Ghetto established.
May 20, 1940: Concentration camp at Auschwitz established in Poland. It would become the largest camp complex established by the Nazis.
October 12, 1940: Warsaw Ghetto established. Warsaw’s Jewish community was the largest in both Poland and Europe, and the second largest in the world.
September 23, 1941: First prisoners killed in gas chambers in Auschwitz and construction begins on Birkenau shortly after.
December 8, 1941: First killing center in Chelmno begins operation. Gypsies and Jews are deported from the Lodz Ghetto to Chelmno to be killed in gas vans.
January 20, 1942: Nazi leaders meet at Wannsee (in Germany) and plan the “Final Solution” to exterminate all Jews.
February 1942: Ghettos begin to be evacuated on a massive scale officially marking the beginning of the systematic deportation and extermination of Jews at the newly established death camps.
March 17, 1942: Belzec extermination camp begins operations. It was the second killing center to be built, but the first of the three Operation Reinhard camps including Treblinka and Sobibor.
May 1942: After some experimentation, operations begin at Sobibor extermination camp.
June 1942: Heinrich Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland the USSR.
July 1942: Operation Reinhard authorities complete construction of Treblinka extermination camp.
October 1942: SS constructs two to three gas chambers at Majdanek to handle killing operations.
April 19-May 16, 1943: Jews in the Warsaw ghetto resist with arms the German’s attempt to liquidate the ghetto.
August 2, 1943: Inmates revolt at Treblinka extermination camp.
October 14, 1943: Inmates at Sobibor extermination camp begin armed revolt.
May 15- July 9, 1944: Over 430,000 Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them are gassed.
July 24, 1944: Soviet troops liberate Majdanek extermination camp.
August 2, 1944: Nazis destroy the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau; around 3,000 Gypsies are gassed.
August 7-30, 1944: Remaining Lodz ghetto Jews are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau as Soviet troops continue their advance into Poland. October 7, 1944: Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt and blow up one crematorium.
January 17, 1945: Nazis evacuate Auschwitz; prisoners begin “death marches” toward Germany.
January 27, 1945: Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered approximately 1.1 million.
May 7, 1945: Germany surrenders, ending the war in Europe.
November 1945-October 1946: War crime trials held at Nuremberg, Germany.