Deportation of Jews from the Netherlands
The deportation of Amsterdam’s Jews from Westerbork transit camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau began.
The deportation of Amsterdam’s Jews from Westerbork transit camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau began.
Fifteen members of the German Civil Service and Nazi Party met at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin. They discssed and agreed the measures needed to implement the ‘Final Solution’ – the complete annihilation of the European Jews. Image courtesy of David Allthorpe.
Following the United States declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.
Killing operations began in Chełmno, the first stationary facility using poison gas for mass murder.
The Nazis herded thousands of Jews from Kiev, in the occupied Ukraine, to the nearby ravine of Babi Yar. The Jews were forced to undress and hand over their valuables and then shot. Over the course of two days, 33,771 Jews were murdered.
The first experimental killings with gas took place at Auschwitz.
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, breaking the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939.
The construction of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the second camp of Auschwitz, began. It soon became the most brutal and overcrowded of the camps at Auschwitz.
The first antisemitic statute was passed by the government of Vichy France – the ‘Statut de Juifs’. It defined any person with three Jewish grandparents or, if the spouse is Jewish as well, two Jewish grandparents, as Jewish.
The German army invaded France. After six weeks of battle, the French surrendered and signed an armistice with the Nazis.