Holocaust Events

1929 Jun 12 Anne Frank is Born in Frankfurt
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank was born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, the second daughter of Otto Frank (1889–1980) and Edith Frank-Holländer (1900–45). Margot Frank (1926–45) was h...
1933 Founding of the Wiener Library
The Wiener Library is the world's oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, its causes and legacies. Founded in 1933 as an information bureau that informed Jewish communit...
1933
to 1945
The Jewish Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponso...
1935 Sep 15 Hitler Announces Nuremberg Laws
The following month two measures were announced at the annual Party Rally in Nuremberg, becoming known as the Nuremberg Laws. Both measures were hastily improvised (there was even a short...
1938 Nov 7 Jewish Youth Herschel Grynszpan Shoots German Diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, Triggering Kristallnacht
Among the expelled was the family of Sendel and Rivka Grynszpan, Polish Jews who had emigrated to Germany in 1911 and settled in Hanover. Their seventeen-year-old son, Herschel was living...
1938 Nov 9
to 1938 Nov 10
 Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalˌnaxt]; literally "Crystal night") or the Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 193...
1939
to 1945
German/Russian occupation of Poland
This article deals with the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War (1939–1945). In the beginning of the war (September, 1939) the territory of Po...
1939 May Ravensbrück, the Largest Concentration Camp for Women, Opens
Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a ...
1939 Sep 2 Construction on Stutthof Concentration Camp is Completed
In September 1939, the Germans established the Stutthof camp in a wooded area west of Stutthof (Sztutowo), a town about 22 miles east of Danzig (Gdansk). The area was secluded: to the nor...
1940 Apr 27 Heinrich Himmler Establishes a Concentration Camp at Auchwitz
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps and extermination camps, operational during World War II. The camp took its German name from the hosting town o...
1941 Sep 18 Krupki Massacre
On September 18, 1941 the entire Jewish Ghetto, a community of 1,000 people were killed by the Nazis. The massacre was described in the diary of one of the German perpetrators. The first ...
1941 Sep 29
to 1941 Sep 30
 Babi Yar Massacre
Nazi forces, mainly German, occupied Kiev on 19 September 1941. The decision to exterminate the Jews of Kiev was made on September 26, in retaliation for guerrilla attacks against German ...
1941 Oct Soviet Prisoners of War Prepare Salaspils Nazi Concentration Camp
Salaspils concentration camp was established at the end of 1941 at a point 18 km southeast of Riga,in the country of Latvia. The Nazi bureaucracy drew distinctions between different types...
1941 Dec Sajmište Nazi Concentration Camp is Established in the Independent State of Croatia
Sajmište concentration camp (Serbian Cyrillic: Концентрациони логор Сајмиште) was a Nazi concentration camp, located in the Independent State of Croatia, on the outskirts of Belgrade. It ...
1942 Jan 14 Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes
On January 14, 1942, representatives from the nine occupied countries met in London to draft the Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes. At the meetings in Tehran (1943), Yalta (194...
1942 May Mass Gassing Operations Begin at Sobibor Nazi Extermination Camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, in...
1942 Jul SS Assumes Control of Westerbork Refugee Camp, Converting it to a Concentration Camp
Westerbork concentration camp (Dutch: Kamp Westerbork, German: Durchgangslager Westerbork) was a World War II concentration camp in Hooghalen, ten kilometers north of Westerbork, in the n...
1942 Jul 6 Anne Frank and her Family Move into their Amsterdam Hiding Place to Evade the Nazis
On the morning of Monday, 6 July 1942, the family moved into the hiding place. Their apartment was left in a state of disarray to create the impression that they had left suddenly, and Ot...
1942 Jul 13 Anne Frank and her Family are Joined by the Pels Family at the Achterhuis
On 13 July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family. Anne wrote o...
1942 Jul 24 Construction of Treblinka Nazi Extermination Camp is Completed
Treblinka II was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Around 850,000 people - more than 99.5 percent of whom were Jews, but also other victims (among t...
1942 Nov Anne Frank and her Family and the Pels Family are Joined by Fritz Pfeffer at the Achterhuis
On 13 July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family. Anne wrote o...
1943 Jan Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp Begins Operation
Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Dutch: Kamp Vught, German: Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch) was a Nazi concentration camp located in Vught near the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, in the Ne...
1943 Jun Belzec Extermination Camp is Dismantled by Jewish Forced Laborers
By late spring 1943, Jewish forced laborers, guarded by the SS and police and their auxiliaries, had completed the task of exhuming the bodies and burning them and had dismantled the camp...
1943 Aug 3 Szczurowa Massacre
The massacre in Szczurowa was the murder of 93 Romani people (also known as Gypsies), including children, women and the elderly, by German Nazi occupiers in the Polish village of Szczurow...
1943 Oct 14 Jewish Prisoners Stage Successful Uprising at Sobibor Extermination Camp
Sobibor was the site of one of two successful uprisings by Jewish prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp — there was a similar revolt at Treblinka on August 2, 1943. A revolt at Auschwitz...
1943 Nov Dismantling and Liquidation of Prisoners at Sobibor Extermination Camp Following Partially-Successful Jewish Uprising
After the revolt, the Germans and the Trawniki-trained guards dismantled the killing center and shot the Jewish prisoners who had not escaped during the uprising. Pursuant to discussions ...
1943 Nov SS Evacuates and Liquidates Janowska Concentration Camp
The evacuation of the Janowska camp began in November 1943. As the Germans attempted to destroy the traces of mass murder (Aktion 1005), they forced the prisoners to open the mass graves ...
1944 Sajmište Nazi Concentration Camp is Destroyed by U.S. Bombers
In November 1943 SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, the officer in charge of Aktion 1005 (later executed for his numerous crimes against humanity) came to Belgrade to organize the destructi...
1944 Mar Anne Frank Hears of a Plan to Create Public Record of German Occupation on Radio Broadcast and Begins Reworking Diary in Hopes of Publication
Anne's diary began as a private expression of her thoughts and she wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read it. She candidly described her life, her family and compan...
1944 Jul Soviet Troops Overrun Treblinka Concentration Camp
The Germans had ordered that Treblinka II be dismantled in the fall of 1943. From July 1942 through November 1943, the Germans killed between 870,000 and 925,000 Jews at the killing cente...
1944 Jul 24 Majdanek Concentration Camp is Liberated by Soviet Troops
In late July 1944, as Soviet forces approached Lublin, the Germans hastily evacuated Majdanek. The SS had evacuated most of the prisoners to concentration camps further west during the sp...
1944 Aug 4 Anne Frank and her Family are Arrested by the Gestapo
On the morning of 4 August 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified. Led by Schutzstaff...
1944 Aug 6 Nazis Begin Evacuation of Kaiserwald Concentration Camp Preceding Arrival of Soviet Forces
On August 6, 1944, as the Red Army advanced westwards and entered Latvia, the Germans began to evacuate the inmates of Kaiserwald to Stutthof, in Poland. Those who were not thought to be ...
1944 Aug 7 Anne Frank and her Family are Transported to Westerbork Concentration Camp
On the morning of 4 August 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified. Led by Schutzstaff...
1944 Sep Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp is Liberated by the 4th Canadian Armored Division and the 96th Battery of the 5th Anti-Tank Division
Due to hunger, sickness and abuse at least 749 children, women and men died in the concentration camp. 329 of them were executed at the execution site, just outside the camp. When allied ...
1944 Sep 3 Anne Frank is Transported from Westerbork to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
On September 3, the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and arrived after a three-day journey. In the chaos that ma...
1944 Oct Anne Frank is Transported from Auschwitz Concentration Camp to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
On 28 October, selections began for women to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank and Auguste van Pels, were transported, but Edith Frank ...
1944 Oct 13 Salaspils Concentration Camp Closes with the Liberation of Riga by the Red Army
In 1944, in an attempt to destroy evidence of mass murder, the Germans forced prisoners to reopen mass graves in Rumbula and burn the bodies. Once the work was completed, the Germans then...
1945 Jan 17 Chełmno Extermination Camp is Abandoned by SS with the Approach of the Red Army
Beginning in September 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners, presumably brought from outside the Wartheland District, was forced to exhume and cremate any remaining corpses from the mass gra...
1945 Jan 27 Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp Liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army
The last selection took place on October 30, 1944. The next month, Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoria destroyed before the Red Army reached the camp. The gas chambers of Birkenau wer...
1945 Feb 14 Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp is Liberated by Soviet Forces
At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to sixty subcamps located in eastern Germany and occupied Poland. In its final stage, the population of the Gross-Rosen camps ...
1945 Mar Anne Frank Dies of Typhus, Along with Her Sister, at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
Both sisters died of typhus in March 1945, just a few weeks before British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. SS officials also selected Anne's parents for labor. Anne's mo...
1945 Apr Partisan Units Liberate Jasenovac Concentration Camp from the Ustaše
In April 1945, as Partisan units approached the camp, the Ustaše camp supervisors attempted to erase traces of the atrocities by working the death camp at full capacity. On April 22, 600 ...
1945 Apr Ravensbrück Concentration Camp is Liberated by Soviet Troops
Camp authorities initiated a second round of killings at such “euthanasia” killing centers later in 1942, continuing until 1944. During this phase, around sixty transports left Ravensbrüc...
1945 Apr 4 U.S. 89th Infantry Division Liberates Ohrdruf, the First Sub-Camp of Buchenwald Concentration Camp Complex
". . .the most interesting--although horrible--sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was..." —Dwight D. Eisenhower
1945 Apr 12 Westerbok Concentration Camp is Liberated by the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division
The Westerbork camp had a "double life." While most inmates stayed in the camp for only short periods of time before being deported, there was also a "permanent" camp population of 2,000 ...
1945 Apr 15 Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp is Liberated by British Forces
On April 15, 1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen. The British found around sixty thousand prisoners in the camp, most of them seriously ill. Thousands of corpses lay unburied on ...
1945 May 4 British Soldiers Liberate Neuengamme Concentration Camp
Due to the demolition of the Neuengamme camp and its records by the SS in 1945 and the transportation of inmates to other subcamps or other working locations, the historical work is diffi...
1945 May 5 U.S. 11th Armored Division Liberates Mauthausen Concentration Camp
[American forces] disarm the remaining SS guards. Representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross begin caring for surviving prisoners in the main camp. Incomplete camp ...
1945 May 9 Soviet Forces Liberate Stutthof Concentration Camp
In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since Stutthof was completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners were forced into the ...