TIMELINE OF INHUMANITY

WWII

•WORLD WAR I ENDS-NOVEMBER 11, 1918

•ENABLING ACT GIVES HITLER POWER-MARCH 23, 1933

NUREMBERG RACE LAWS-SEPT. 15, 1935

• The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. The laws also made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans or to employ young Aryan women as household help. (An Aryan being a person with blond hair and blue eyes of Germanic heritage.)

•February 10, 1936

•Gestapo placed above the law-

KRISTALLNACHT-Nov. 9/10, 1938Night of broken glass

•Onlookers watch as the local fire department prevents the fire from spreading to nearby houses, but makes no attempt to stop the synagogue from burning.

Cont’d• A massive, coordinated attack on Jews

throughout the Germany on the night of November 9, 1938

• On Nov. 9, mob violence broke out as the regular German police stood by and crowds of spectators watched. Nazi storm troopers along with members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murdered Jews, broke into and wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalized Jewish women and children.

• 7500 businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned (with 177 totally destroyed) and 91 Jews killed.

March 15/16, 1939

•NAZIS TAKE OVER CZECHOSLOVAKIA

• As the Nazis take over different countries, the Jewish people in those communities become targets.

NAZIS INVADE POLAND Sept 1, 1939The execution of Polish hostages in retaliation for an

attack on a Nazi police station by the underground organization "White Eagle." In all, fifty-one civilians were shot.

September 3, 1939

•Britain, France, Australia declare war on Germany

NAZI EUTHANASIA-Oct. 1939• In October of 1939 amid the outbreak of war

Hitler ordered widespread "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled.

• Doctors were given questionnaires to answer when a child was born. red plus mark meant a decision to kill the child. A blue minus sign meant a decision against killing. Three plus symbols resulted in a euthanasia warrant being issued and the transfer of the child to a 'Children's Specialty Department' for death by injection or gradual starvation.

• At Brandenburg, a former prison was converted into a killing center where the first Nazi experimental gassings took place. The gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms, but were actually hermetically sealed chambers connected by pipes to cylinders of carbon monoxide. Patients were generally drugged before being led naked into the gas chamber. Each killing center included a crematorium where the bodies were taken for disposal. Families were then falsely told the cause of death was medical such as heart failure or pneumonia

• April 9, 1940

• Nazis invade Denmark, Norway

• May 10, 1940

• Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands

• June 10, 1940

• Norway surrenders to Nazis

• Italy declares war on France/Britain

• November 5, 1940• Roosevelt is re-elected president

• July 12, 1941• Mutual assistance between British and

Soviets

• July 26, 1941• Roosevelt freezes Japanese assets and

suspends relations with Japan

JEWISH GHETTOS

• Nazi-occupied Poland had an enormous Jewish population of over 2 million persons. On Heydrich's orders, Jews who were not shot outright were crammed into ghettos in places such as Warsaw, Krakow, and Lodz. Overcrowding and lack of food within these walled-in ghettos soon led to starvation, rampant diseases, and the resulting deaths of 500,000 Jews by mid 1941.

Jewish Ghettos Pictures

SEPT. 1,1941JEWS

ORDERED TO WEAR

YELLOW STARS

DEC 7, 1941 JAPAN BOMBS PEARL HARBOR

APRIL 1942JAPANESE AMERICANS SENT

TO INTERMENT CAMPS

NOT ON YOUR TIMELINE• LIQUIDATION OF LIDICE-June 10, 1942• Czech agents shot Heydrich (one of Hitler’s top officers).

He later died of his wounds.• As a further reprisal, Hitler ordered the small Czech

mining village of Lidice to be liquidated on the fake charge that it had aided the assassins.

• In one of the most infamous single acts of World War Two, all 172 men and boys over age 16 in the village were shot while the women were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp where most died.

• The village of Lidice was then destroyed building by building with explosives, then completely leveled until not a trace remained, with grain being planted over the flattened soil. The name was then removed from all German maps.

LIQUIDATION OF LIDICE

JUNE 1942• MASS MURDERS OF JEWS

BEGINS AT AUSCHWITZ

Heading to Gas Chambers and Getting Rid of the Bodies

MAP OF DEATH CAMPS

February 2, 1943

Germans surrender Stalingrad-first big defeat by the Allies

July 25, 1943

Mussolini arrested and Fascist government falls

Sept. 12, 1943 Mussolini is rescued by Germans

Sept. 23, 1943 Mussolini re-establishes Fascist government

BIRKENAU

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Dec 16, 1943 - The chief surgeon at Auschwitz reports that 106 castration operations have been performed.

July 20, 1944

• German assassination attempt to kill Hitler fails

August 4, 1944• Anne Frank and her family are arrested

JAN 26, 1945SOVIETS LIBERATE AUSCHWITZ

• Front gate of Auschwitz. The sign reads “Work shall set you free”

Clothes and shoes of gassed prisoners.

April 10-12, 1945Allies liberate Buchenwald

Roosevelt dies/Truman takes over

• A truckload of bodies from Buchenwald concentration camp. The Nazis were about to dispose of them by burning when the camp was captured by troops of the U.S. 3rd Army.

April 28, 1945

• Mussolini is captured again and hanged

• April 30, 1945

• Hitler commits suicide

• May 7, 1945

• Surrender of German Troops

August 6, 1945• U.S. drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima• The bomb has 20,000 tons of TNT. From the

resultant blast and the firestorm which quickly follows, more than half the city is laid waste. This bomb killed over 140,000 people in the city of Hiroshima.

• August 8, 1845• Soviets declare war on Japan

August 9, 1945• U.S. drops 2nd atomic bomb on Nagasaki

August 14, 1945• Japan surrenders

ELIE WIESEL CURRENT PHOTOS