1935
July 30 Nazis intensify repression of Jews. Physical violence against Jewish citizens reaches a new peak in Berlin's fashionable Kurfurstendamm. In Breslau, 24 Jewish males and "Aryan" girls are arrested as "race defilers" and taken to concentration camps.
September 6 Public sale of Jewish newspapers is banned.
September 10 The seventh National NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party) Congress convenes at Nuremburg.
September 15 Nazi Congress adopts the swastika as the Reich's national flag.
September 15 German Congress passes the so-called Nuremburg Laws which redefine German Jews as non-citizens and ban Jews from any political participation. These laws on German "Citizenship, Blood and Honor," prohibit Jews from marrying German citizens, having extramarital relations with German citizens and prohibit any Jew from raising the German flag.
September 21 Under the Nuremberg Laws, Jewish doctors are forced to resign from private hospitals.
1936
March 7 Hitler sends German troops into the Rhineland, in violation of the treaties of Versailles and Locarno.
August 1 The Olympic Games open in Berlin. American Jews and African-Americans participate. Ohio State University athlete, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals. Hitler made a hasty departure from the stadium to avoid offering congratulations.
1937
July 1 The Rev. Martin Niemoller, outspoken Protestant critic of the Nazi regime, is arrested and jailed.
August 4 An official teacher's manual is issued in Berlin stressing the importance of teaching antisemitism.
August ? The massive concentration camp is opened at Buchenwald under the command of SS Colonel Karl Koch.
October 20 The British government restricts Jewish immigration to Palestine.
November 16 Jews are prohibited from obtaining passports or traveling abroad except in special cases.
1938
January 1 Jewish doctors in Germany lose insurance under the Nuremberg Laws.
February 4 Adolph Hitler promotes himself to Supreme Commander of Germany's armed Forces and took total control of foreign policy.
March 11-12 Germany invades Austria. Hitler is now the undisputed ruler of over 70 million people. Austrian political leaders who had opposed Hitler's invasion are now under arrest.
March 14 Hitler rides victorious into Vienna and announces the "Anschluss," or union of Germany and Austria.
July 22 Effective January 1, 1939, all Jews must carry a special identification card.
July 27 All Jewish street names are replaced with German names.
October 5 Jewish passports ration cards are marked with a "J."
October 28 About 15,000 German Jews are "relocated" in Poland.
November 7 In Paris a teenaged Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, assassinated Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy. He was attempting to avenge the mistreatment of his family in Poland.
November 9 Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass." Following the death of Ernst von Rath, and in retribution against Grynszpan's act, Goebbels instigated acts of violence against Jews throughout Berlin. More than 90 people were killed, store windows were broken and synagogues set fire. A full-fledged pogrom is now in motion.(10)
November 12 Jews are held responsible for the destruction resulting from Kristallnacht and are ordered to pay reparations of one billion Reichsmarks.
November 15 Jews are forbidden to attend plays, movies, concerts; Jewish children prohibited from attending German schools.
November 28 Curfews are placed on Jews.
December 8 Jews may no longer attend German universities.
November 21, 1938 Kindertransport
On Novemer 21, 1938, the British government announced their approval for the Kindertransport, launching a massive train and boat transport to bring the persecuted youth to safety.
About 1996 Ted and I visited London, England. I attended a matinee performance of a play called Kindertransport, written by playwright Diane Samuels. It was based on testimony of adults, who as children were sent to England from Germany and other countries to escape WW II. It was a powerful story and the first time I had heard of this extraordinary event of the Holocaust. One of the children was Bertha Leverton who came from Czechoslavakia and remained in England after the war. She eventually organized a reunion of the Kindertransport children. I was so moved by the whole background of this little known event at this point, I called Bertha to see if she might give a lecture to the Cleveland Jewish Genealogical Society the following year when she was due to visit the U.S. We corresponded and Bertha would apologize for her handwriting as she explained she wasn't permitted to attend school when she arrived in England. Just recently PBS had a documentary about these adult-children and Bertha was interviewed. I saw her for the first time. In the past few years another kindertransport story, "Into the Arms of Strangers", was made into a film. The following links discuss both these documentaries.(11)
http://www.theatrewesternsprings.com/Kindertransport.html
http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/s_archive/HolocaustFilm/IntotheArms/
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1939
February 22 22,000 American Nazis hold a rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden, denouncing America's Jews. Synagogues in the city were defaced with Nazi swastikas.
March 15 Germany conquers Czechoslovakia.
May 3 Hungary adopts anti-Jewish legislation calling for the deportation of 300,000 Jews.
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At this time approximately 215,000 Jews still live in Germany.
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May 22 Germany and Italy signed the "Pact of Steel" treaty in which the two countries are bound together economically, politically and militarily.
June 6 Cuba denies entry to 907 Jewish immigrants from Germany, including over 400 women and children.
August 24 Letters of desperation written from families to their U.S. relatives.
September 1 Germany invades Poland. World War II begins. On this day, both Britain and France declare war on Germany.
October 12 Deportation of Austrian Jews to Poland begins.
October 30 A British report reveals atrocities against Jews and non-Jews at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
November 23 Reich law requires Jews in Poland to wear the yellow Star of David.
1940
February 12 Germany begins deportation of German Jews to concentration camps.
February 21 Construction begins on concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.
May 28 Holland and Belgium fall to the Nazis.
July 16 The Vichy government in France denies citizenship to naturalized Jews.
November 26 German troops begin herding Warsaw's Jewish population into an enclosed ghetto surrounded by an 8-foot high wall. Germans deny that antisemitism is the motivation for this action.
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