70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Transcription

1 TIME LINE JANUARY 30, 1933: PRESIDENT HINDENBURG APPOINTS ADOLF HITLER CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY. MARCH 20, 1933: SS OPENS THE DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP OUTSIDE OF MUNICH. APRIL 1, 1933: BOYCOTT OF JEWISHOWNED SHOPS AND BUSINESSES IN GERMANY. SEPTEMBER 15, 1935: NUREMBERG RACE LAWS. MARCH 7, 1936: GERMAN TROOPS MARCH UNOPPOSED INTO THE RHINELAND. NOVEMBER 9/10, 1938: KRISTALLNACHT MARCH 11-13, 1938: GERMANY INCORPORATES AUSTRIA IN THE ANSCHLUSS (UNION). SEPTEMBER 1, 1939: OCTOBER 8, 1939: GERMANS ESTABLISH GHETTO IN PIOTRKÓW TRYBUNALSKI, POLAND. (FROM GHETTOS WERE ESTABLISHED ACROSS EUROPE). GERMANY INVADES POLAND, STARTING WORLD WAR II IN EUROPE. 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz View of the main entrance to the Auschwitz camp: "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free). Image courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej ADOLF HITLER As chancellor in 1933 and later Fuhrer in 1934, Hitler enacted swift change via the Nazi party to Germany s political, social, and economic structure. He promoted Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism, and anticommunism. He cited capitalism and communism as part of the Jewish agenda. From Jews were confined to ghettos. In 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet union, and the Nazis fashioned a plan, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, which was orchestrated by Heinrich Himmler.

2 APRIL 9 & MAY 10TH, 1940: GERMANY INVADES DENMARK AND NORWAY AND ATTACKS WESTERN EUROPE (FRANCE AND THE LOW COUNTRIES). JULY 10, 1940: BATTLE OF BRITAIN BEGINS. JUNE 22, 1941: GERMANY INVADES THE SOVIET UNION. JULY 6, 1941: (MOBILE KILLING UNITS) SHOOT NEARLY 3,000 JEWS AT THE SEVENTH FORT, ONE OF THE 19TH-CENTURY FORTIFICATIONS SURROUNDING KOVNO. AUGUST 3, 1941: BISHOP CLEMENS AUGUST GRAF VON GALEN OF MUENSTER DENOUNCES THE EUTHANASIA KILLING PROGRAM IN A PUBLIC SERMON. NOVEMBER 7, 1941: ROUND UP 13,000 JEWS FROM THE MINSK GHETTO AND KILL THEM IN NEARBY TUCHINKI (TUCHINKA). NOVEMBER 30, 1941: SHOOT 10,000 JEWS FROM THE RIGA GHETTO IN THE RUMBULA FOREST. DECEMBER 6, 1941: SOVIET WINTER COUNTEROFFENSIVE. THE "FINAL SOLUTION" The Final Solution was the name of the Nazi plan to exterminate Jewish people. The origin of the plan is uncertain. However, it was the final product after many years of Adolph Hitler s Nazi policies culminating in the systematic extermination of the Jews. Holocaust or Shoah is the term given to the genocide of Jews between 1941 and About six million Jews were killed as well as five million other non-jews. The Nazi party rose to power in 1933 and began a series of anti-jewish legislation (over 400 dictates that impacted both their private and public lives). Once World War II had commenced in 1939, the creation of these policies escalated and evolved into a plan to segregate and later terminate the European Jewish population. The initial implementation of the Final Solution occurred after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, when mobile killing units, Einsatzgruppen, killed over 1.5 million Jews. KRISTALLNACHT DECEMBER 7, 1941: JAPAN BOMBS PEARL HARBOR AND THE UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR THE NEXT DAY. On November 9th - 10th,1938, an outburst of violence known as Kristallnacht, Night of Crystal, also called Night of Broken Glass, took place. Homes and businesses were plundered and destroyed in what the Germans claimed was a response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official stationed in Paris, by a displaced Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan. The destruction claimed 267 synagogues across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland and over 7,500 Jewish owned businesses were looted and destroyed.

3 DECEMBER 11, 1941: NAZI GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON THE UNITED STATES. MARCH 27, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN THE DEPORTATION OF MORE THAN 65,000 JEWS FROM DRANCY, OUTSIDE PARIS, TO THE EAST (PRIMARILY TO AUSCHWITZ). JULY 22, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN THE MASS DEPORTATION OF OVER 300,000 JEWS FROM THE WARSAW GHETTO TO THE TREBLINKA KILLING CENTER. APRIL 19, 1943: WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING BEGINS. NOVEMBER 6, 1943: SOVIET TROOPS LIBERATE KIEV. JANUARY 16, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN THE MASS DEPORTATION OF MORE THAN 65,000 JEWS FROM LODZ TO THE CHELMNO KILLING CENTER. JULY 15, 1942: GERMANS BEGIN MASS DEPORTATIONS OF NEARLY 100,000 JEWS FROM THE OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS TO THE EAST (PRIMARILY TO AUSCHWITZ). SEPTEMBER 12, 1942: GERMANS COMPLETE THE MASS DEPORTATION OF ABOUT 265,000 JEWS FROM WARSAW TO TREBLINKA. OCTOBER 1, 1943: RESCUE OF JEWS IN DENMARK. THE CAMPS In 1933, the first concentration camps were built; all threats to the state as well as the deviant and diseased were imprisoned. Dachau was the first camp established, but there were relatively few Jews in the camp initially, the number increased drastically following Kristallnacht. Between 1933 and 1945 about 20,000 camps were constructed; these facilities served various functions and included labor camps, temporary transit stations, and death camps. The first camps intended to contain prisoners of the state were called concentration camps, because they confined these undesirables to a specific place. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, forced-labor camps were constructed, and after the invasion of the Soviet Union POW (prisoner -of-war) camps were constructed, some near previously existing concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The killing centers were constructed in Poland, which had the largest Jewish population. These were facilities engineered for the mass, well-organized extermination of individuals. There were four gas chambers at Birkenau, which was the killing facility at Auschwitz. About 6,000 Jews were killed each day at the height of Jewish deportations. Very few of those imprisoned survived.

4 MARCH 19, 1944: GERMAN FORCES OCCUPY HUNGARY. AUSCHWITZ MAY 15, 1944: GER- JUNE 6, 1944: D-DAY: ALLIED FORCES INVADE NORMANDY, FRANCE. MANS BEGIN THE MASS DEPORTATION OF ABOUT 440,000 JEWS FROM HUNGARY. JULY 25, 1944: ANGLO- JUNE 22, 1944: THE AMERICAN FORCES BREAK OUT OF NORMANDY. AUGUST 15, 1944: ALLIED FORCES LAND IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. DECEMBER 16, 1944: BATTLE OF THE BULGE. JANUARY 18, 1945: DEATH MARCH OF NEARLY 60,000 PRISONERS FROM THE AUSCHWITZ CAMP SYSTEM IN SOUTHERN POLAND. Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp established, and it incorporated three forced labor camps, one of which functioned as a killing center. The camp was split in 1943 but later united in 1944 and renamed Monowitz. Like many camps of its kind, Auschwitz was built to house prisoners who were believed to be a threat to Nazi rule, to provide a labor force, and to function as killing facilities for those seen as threats to the safety and welfare of the state. Approximately 1.1 million Jews from across Europe were transported to the facility. Birkenau housed the first Zyklon B gas chamber and three large crematoriums. The mass killings continued at this facility until November of At least 960,000 Jews were killed at Auschwitz. SOVIETS LAUNCH AN OFFENSIVE IN EASTERN BELORUSSIA (BELARUS). AUGUST 1, 1944: WARSAW POLISH UPRISING BEGINS. AUGUST 25, 1944: LIBERATION OF PARIS. JANUARY 12, 1945: SOVIET WINTER OFFENSIVE. JANUARY 25, 1945: DEATH MARCH OF NEARLY 50,000 PRISONERS FROM THE STUTTHOF CAMP SYSTEM IN NORTHERN POLAND. Main entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Poland, date uncertain. Image courtesy of Beit Lohamei Haghettaot LIBERATION In mid-january 1945, the SS troops overseeing Auschwitz began to evacuate the facility as the Soviet army approached in what would later be called death marches. Approximately 15,000 died during the withdrawal to other facilities. Soviet forces arrived on January 27th 1945 and liberated nearly 7,000 prisoners, many of whom were sick or dying. After the liberation, portions of Auschwitz functioned as a hospital for many of the ill prisoners.

5 JANUARY 27, 1945: SOVIET TROOPS LIBERATE THE AUSCHWITZ CAMP COMPLEX. APRIL 16, 1945: THE SOVIETS LAUNCH THEIR FINAL OFFENSIVE, ENCIRCLING BERLIN. APRIL 30, 1945: ADOLF HITLER COMMITS SUICIDE. JEWISH POPULATION In 1933 the Jewish population was estimated at 9.5 million, and 60% of these individuals lived throughout Europe. By 1950, there were 3.5 million Jews, and 51% lived in the Americas. Only one third lived in Europe (American Jewish Yearbook). Today there are about 15 million Jews worldwide, with most of these individuals living either in Israel or the United States (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs). MARCH 7, 1945: US TROOPS CROSS THE Voices From Auschwitz Born: 1921, Lodz, Poland Mr. Schneiderman, along with his family, was forced into a ghetto in Lodz in 1939 after the Germans invaded. He was later deported to Auschwitz in 1944, when the ghetto was liquidated. From Auschwitz he was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp and later transferred to Ebenss, which was liberated in RHINE RIVER AT REMAGEN. APRIL 29, 1945: AMERICAN FORCES LIBERATE THE DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP. MAY 7 - MAY 9, 1945: GERMANY SURRENDERS TO THE WESTERN ALLIES AND TO THE SOVIETS. Born: 1925, Korosmezo, Czechoslovakia Cecilie was the youngest of 6 children. In 1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary, her family was transported to a ghetto in Huszt and later transported to Auschwitz. She and her sister were sent to a labor camp, but the rest of her family were gassed on arrival. She worked in several labor camps before Allied troops liberated her in 1945.