Six thousand inmates await
disinfection in a Mauthausen courtyard, July 1941. After 24 hours of waiting,
nearly 140 had died.
|
January 22-23
First massacre of Jews in Romania.
February-April
Deportation of 72,000 Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto.
February 22-23
Deportation of 400 Jewish hostages from Amsterdam to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
March 2
German troops occupy Bulgaria.
March 7
Induction of German Jews into forced labor.
April 6
Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
May 14
Arrest of 3,600 Parisian Jews. Romania passes law condemning adult Jews to forced labor.
May 16
French Marshall Petain approves collaboration with Hitler in radio broadcast.
A member of Einsatzgruppe
D prepares to shoot a Ukrainian Jew, who is forced to kneel before a mass
grave full of other victims.
|
Vichy government revokes civil rights of French Jews in North Africa and decrees many restrictions against them. Nazi SS Einsatzgruppen begin mass murder.
June 22
Germany attacks the Soviet Union.
June-July
Mass shootings of Jews begin in Ponary Forest, the killing grounds near Vilna, Poland. By 1944, 70,000 to 100,000 perish there.
June-August
Numerous pogroms occur in occupied Russian territories.
July 2
Anti-racist riots in Lvov, Poland in which Ukrainian nationalists take part.
July 8
Introduction of the wearing of the Star of David in Baltic countries.
July 17
Alfred Rosenberg appointed Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories to administer territories seized from the Soviet Union.
Reinhard Heydrich oversaw the
Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). He also convened the Wannsee conference
in January 1942 to discuss implementation of the Final Solution.
|
Göring assigns Heydrich the task for "a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe." Beginning of the "Final Solution."
August
Ghettos established in Bialystok and Lvov, Poland.
September
Janówska labor and extermination camp opens near Lvov in Ukraine.
September 1
Police order pertaining to the introduction of the Star of David in Germany, effective September 19 for all Jews age six and older.
September 3
First gassing tests in Auschwitz using Zyklon-B, a poisonous gas.
September 6
Vilna Ghetto created with population of 40,000 Jews.
September 19
German troops capture Kiev, Ukraine.
September 27
Heydrich declared "Protector of Bohemia and Moravia."
A 1936 portrait of two-year-old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was
later killed in the mass execution at Babi Yar.
|
Mass murder of Jews at Babi Yar near Kiev (34,000 victims).
October 3
Forced labor for the Jews in the Reich.
October 10
Ghetto in Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, established.
October 12-13
Massacre of Jews at Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine (11,000 victims).
October 14
Orders issued for deportation of German Jews from Germany as defined by its 1933 borders.
October 16
Deportation of the Jews from the Reich begins.
October 23
Massacre of Jews in Odessa (34,000 victims). Prohibition against the emigration of Jews.
A mother and her two children wait with a large
group of Jews from Lubny, Ukraine, whom the Nazis have assembled for mass
execution, October 16, 1941.
|
Einsatzgruppen mass killings of Jews all over southern Russia.
October 28
Massacre of Jews in Kiev (34,000 victims).
November 6
Massacre of Jews in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania (15,000 victims).
November 25
Declaration made pertaining to the collection of Jewish assets through deportations.
December
Massacre of Jews in Riga, Latvia; victims include the first transport of Jews from Germany (27,000 victims).
December 7
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Hitler issues "Night and Fog" decree, policy under which underground agents and other opponents are made to vanish into the "night and fog."
December 8
The United States and Britain declare war on Japan. Chelmno extermination camp opens near Lodz, Poland. By April 1943, 360,000 Jews will have been murdered at Chelmno.
December 11
Germany declares war on the United States, which, in turn, declares war on Germany.
December 30
Massacre of Jews in Simferopol in the Crimea (10,000 victims).
Continue: 1942
Photos: Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.
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