A Timeline of TragedyHolocaust Retrospective

1934-1945

Presentation by Mark J. Kuntz

Hitler becomes Führer of GermanyAugust 19, 1934

July 23, 1938Nazis order Jews to apply for identity cards

October 5, 1938Jewish passports required

by law to be stamped with a red “J”

November 23, 1939Polish Jews over the

age of 10 are required to wear

yellow stars on their clothing

Kristallnacht

On November 9, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Jew living in Paris, shot and killed a member of the German Embassy.

Nazi storm troopers beat and murdered Jews, broke into and wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalized Jewish women and children.

All over Germany, Austria and other Nazi controlled areas, Jewish shops. department stores, and synagogues were vandalized and desecrated.

In total, 7500 businesses and 267 synagogues were destroyed.

91 Jews were killed.

"The Jewish people ought to be exterminated root and branch. Then the plague of pests would have disappeared in Poland at one

stroke.“

Der Stürmer, a Nazi newspaper,published by Julius Streicher

September 1939

January 25, 1940Nazis choose the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) near Krakow as site of a new concentration camp.

September 16, 1940Congress passes the

United States military conscription act.

March 1, 1941Himmler makes his first visit to Auschwitz, during which he orders Kommandant Höss to begin massive expansion, including a new compound to be built at nearby Birkenau that can hold 100,000 prisoners.

December 7, 1941

The United States is attacked by Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbor. The next day, the United States and Britain declare war on Japan.

"I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear.“

Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland1941

December 10, 1942

The first transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.

“… Most of you know what it means to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or a thousand. To have gone through this and yet - apart from a few exceptions, examples of human weakness - to have remained decent fellows, this is what has made us hard. This is a glorious page in our history that has never been written and shall never be written … “

Heinrich Himmler, to SS Group Leaders in Posen

October 4, 1943

April 14, 1944 Elie Wiesel and his family are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

June 6, 1944D-Day: Allied forces land in Normandy.

October through December 1944

On October 30, the gas chambers at Auschwitz are used for the last time.

Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews by moving them from Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz.

April 29, 1945United States 7th Army liberates Dachau.

April 30, 1945Hitler commits suicide

in his Berlin bunker.

November 20, 1945The tribunal at Nuremberg convenes to try Nazi war criminals.

Aftermath

Military Casualties24,456,700

Civilian Casualties32,326,100

Jewish Casualties5,754,000

Total Casualties 62,536,800

Holocaust Survivors Living Today

834,000

“I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead, and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”

Elie Wiesel

Mark Kuntz

CIS 101: Introduction to ComputersApril, 2007