Introduction to Night: World War II Timeline

9th Lit/Comp—GellerFall 2013

1928September 30, ElieWiesel born in Sighet,Transylvania (Romania).

1933Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany

and the Nazi party takes control of Germany's government.

1933The first permanent concentration camp, Dachau, is established.

1935Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews are decreed, depriving Jews of German citizenship.

1936The SS renames its units deployed at

concentration camps the "Death's Head Units," later known as "Death's Head Battalions."

Caption: SS officers wore patches to distinguish themselves as “Death Head Units.”

1936

Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler is appointed chief of the German Police. The summer Olympic games are H hosted in Berlin.

1937Japan invades China proper, initiating the

Pacific War that would become a part of World War II.

1938Kristallnacht (night of crystal, also known

as the night of broken glass): a government-organized pogrom against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia results in widespread destruction of synagogues, businesses, and homes and the loss of at least 91lives in November.

Kristallnacht

1939Hitler violates Munich Agreement of 1938 byinvading and dismembering Czechoslovakia. InSeptember, Germany invades Poland, startingWorld War II in Europe.

1939 In November, thefirst ghetto isestablished inPiotrków, Poland.

1939Jews in parts of occupied Poland are forced towear armbands bearing the Star of David foridentification.

1940In spring, Germans conquer Denmark, Norway,France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and theNetherlands; Winston Churchill becomes BritishPrime Minister.

. In May, Auschwitz concentration camp is established. Italy declares war on Britain and France in June.

http://www.remember.org/auschwitz/info.php?topic=info&start=yes&size=l&fmt=qtvr&ex=aus

In August, at German and Italian arbitration, Romania is compelled to cede northern Transylvania, including Sighet, to Hungary. In autumn, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia join the German-Italian alliance, called the Axis. German authorities begin to seal off ghettos in German-occupied Poland.

• Elie Wiesel and his family become residents of Hungary.

1941

• Nazi Germany attacks the Soviet Union on June 22. The British and the Soviets sign a Mutual Assistance agreement.

• The U.S. enters World War II on December 8, a day after Germany's Axis partner, Japan, attacks the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

• Twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel begins studying the Kabbalah.

1942

The Wannsee Conference held in Berlin in January in Berlin ensures the full cooperation of all state, Nazi Party, and SS agencies in implementing "the Final Solution"- a plan to murder the European Jews-under the coordination of the SS and police.

1943

Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rise up against their oppressors. By the end of the year, the Germans and their Axis partners have killed more than four million European Jews.

1944• On June 6, D-Day, Anglo-American forces establish the first Allied

beachhead in western Europe on the Normandy coast of France. • On June 22, Soviet forces begin a massive offensive and advance

to the outskirts of Warsaw in six weeks. • Anne Frank's family is arrested by the German occupation

authorities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.• Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler orders a halt to the "Final

Solution" in November 1944 and orders the destruction of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau

• Elie Wiesel is fifteen years old when he and his family are deported in May 1944 by the Hungarian gendarmerie and the German SS and police from Sighet to Auschwitz.

1945• Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz on January 27. - SS units evacuate Auschwitz in

January. -Elie and his father are transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp• U.S. troops liberate Buchenwald on April 11. - Elie is liberated with the arrival of

U.S. troops in April. • Germany surrenders on May 7; • World War II in Europe ends on May 8. • On September 2, the Pacific War ends with the surrender of Japan after the U.S.

drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.• World War II is over. • The United Nations is founded. • On November 20, the trial of the top Nazi leaders begins in Nuremberg under

the auspices of the International Military Tribunal. – indict 22 top-ranking Nazi leaders and six German and Nazi Party organizations for

crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

1946

Eighteen of 22 defendants are convicted by the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trial; 12 are sentenced to death.

1948

The State of Israel is created. On May 14, 1948, the last British forces withdraw from Palestine and the State of Israel is established in accordance with the United Nations Partition Plan that proposed the partition of Palestine into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state.

• The U.S. Congress passes the Displaced Persons Act, authorizing 200,000 displaced persons to enter the United States.

• On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the United Nations approves the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide" as an international crime, which signatory nations "undertake to prevent and punish."

• Elie Wiesel studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. He becomes interested in journalism.

1949

Elie Wiesel goes to Jerusalem for the first time.

1951

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force.