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CHRONOLOGY OF THE HOLOCAUST
1938
April 10
Having annexed Austria in March, Germany's Adolph Hitler calls a plebiscite which shows that more than 99 percent of Austrians favor union with Germany's Third Reich.
June 15
The US Congress passes the Fair Labor Standards Act, the first national effort to legislate a minimum hourly wage (25 cents) and a ceiling on the number of working hours (44 per week).
September 30
The Munich Pact is signed. The British and French allow Hitler to annex the Sudetenland, a 16,000-square-mile area of Czechoslovakia with a largely German-speaking population. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) says this will satisfy Germany and bring "peace for our time ... peace with honor."
November 9
The largest pogrom in German history takes place, as Jewish shop windows are smashed, and the shops, as well as homes and synagogues, are looted, destroyed and burned. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews are taken to concentration camps.
1939
January 16
Physicists Lise Meitner and Otto R. Frisch describe the process by which a neutron causes the disintegration of the uranium nucleus into "two nuclei of roughly equal size." They call this process "nuclear fission."
March 14
After annexing the Sudetenland, Germany invades the rest of Czechoslovakia, while Italy launches an invasion of Albania (see map).
March 28
The Spanish Civil War ends, as Madrid falls to the forces of Francisco Franco.
August 23
Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia sign a mutual non-aggression pact. The agreement is signed by German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Josef Stalin's commissar of foreign affairs, V. M. Molotov.
September 1
German troops and aircraft attack Poland. Soviet troops will invade Poland from the east on September 17, and Poland will surrender to the Germans on September 27.
September 3
After Hitler ignores their demand for German withdrawal from Poland, and as the British ship Athenia is sunk by German U-boats off the coast of Ireland, Great Britain and France formally declare war on Germany.
September 17
American aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention radio speech. The U.S. non-intervention movement is supported not just by Lindbergh, but by former president Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Henry Ford, Lindbergh and a number of senators and congressmen as well.
September 28
Poland is partitioned between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
November 4
Although President Roosevelt has declared American neutrality in the war in Europe, a Neutrality Act is signed that allows the US to send arms and other aid to Britain and France.
November 30
Soviet troops invade Finland.
December 16
In Washington, the National Women's Party meets and urges the Congress to act on an Equal Rights Amendment.
1940
January 30
The U.S. government issues its first Social Security checks, totaling just over $75,000.
March 18
Mussolini and Hitler announce Italy's formal alliance with Germany against England and France.
May 7
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin resigns in disgrace. He will be replaced by Winston Churchill on May 10.
May 10
The German Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") begins, as Rotterdam and other Dutch cities are attacked from the air. By the end of the month, the Dutch armies will have surrendered, Belgium will have surrendered, and the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk will be underway.
June 10
Italy declares war on Britain and France, and U.S. President Roosevelt announces a shift from neutrality to "non-belligerency," meaning more active support for the Allies against the Axis.
June 14
German troops enter Paris and, as a French appeal for U.S. aid is declined, the French fortress at Verdun falls to the Germans.
June 28
In the U.S., the Alien Registration Act (the Smith Act) passed by Congress requires aliens to register and be fingerprinted; the Act makes it illegal to advocate the overthrow of the US government.
July 9
As German air attacks over Britain intensify, the British Royal Air Force begins night bombing of German targets.
August 17
Germany declares a blockade of British waters, and begins a bombing campaign which, by September, will be killing hundreds each day. In November, German air raids will kill more than 4,500 Britons.
September 27
Germany, Italy and Japan enter into a 10-year military and economic alliance that comes to be known as the "Axis". Hungary and Romania will join the Axis in November.
October 29
Conscription begins in the U.S. It is the first military draft to occur during peacetime in American history.
November 5
Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented third term as president, with 54 percent of the popular vote. He defeats Republican Wendell L. Willke.
1941
January 6
Contrary to widespread isolationist sentiment, President Roosevelt recommends a "Land-Lease" program that will provide U.S. aid to the Allies.
April 6
Greece and Yugoslavia are invaded by German troops.
April 16
Britain receives its first American "Lend-Lease" aid shipments of food. By December, millions of tons of food will have arrived from the U.S.
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May 15
France - the Vichy government sends 5,000 Paris Jews between the ages of 18 and 40 to labor camps.
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May 31
British troops arrive in Iraq and will prevent Axis sympathizers from taking over the government there. In early June, British and Free French troops will invade Syria and Lebanon to prevent those countries from being taken over by the Germany.
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June 13
Vichy reports the deportation of 12,000 French Jews to concentration camps for interfering with Franco-German cooperation.
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June 22
German troops invade Soviet Russia, breaking the "nonaggression" pact signed in 1939. Two days later, President Roosevelt promises US aid to Russia.
June 25
President Roosevelt creates a U.S. Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), after a march by 50,000 black Americans is threatened by A. Philip Randolph to protest unfair labor practices in the government and the war industry.
June 28
Vannevar Bush is named director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), which has just been created by President Roosevelt.
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June 30
Hitler invades Russia
July 8
Poland--MIELNITZA/MIELNICA - NOW MEL'NITSA PODOL'SKAYA, UKRAINE---COORDINATES: 48 37/26 10
With the Red Army's entry into Mielnica during the second half of September 1939, the large farms were nationalized. Homes, large stores and warehouses owned by Jews were confiscated and private workshops were banned. The community's institutions, political parties, and youth organizations were broken up, and a number of rich persons and community workers were arrested. A few people succeeded in escaping while there was still time, while others were arrested with their families and expelled to remote regions of the Soviet Union. A local public school was established whose language of instruction was Yiddish.
When war between Germany and the Soviet Union broke out, military conscripts retreated together with Soviet authorities as did a few Jews who were known Communists. The Russians did not try to persuade Jews to leave the city. Practical possibilities for evacuation were closed off; roads were sealed by the army and were bombed by the Germans. Up until the Soviet authorities and army departed, a hostile atmosphere toward Jews prevailed. Ukranian nations organized their own militia, spread anti-Semitic slogans, and cited the Christian populace to reprisal, plunder and rioting. On the pretext that the Jews had collaborated with the Soviet police in the murder of Ukrainians, Jews were ordered to exhume the bodies of 12 prisoners who had been shot by the Soviets in the prison yard. To prevent harm to members of the community, Jewish youths gathered at the Community Center and organized themselves into night patrols. Jews were afraid to go out into the street. From all over the surrounding area, and even from Bukovina across the Dniester, wagonloads of Ukrainian farmers streamed into town to plunder the property of Jews. Armed with axes, the farmers and the urban mob broke into Jewish homes and shops and destroyed a pharmacy. Only the intervention of the Greek Catholic priest, a group of Baptists, and some decent Ukrainians in Mielnica kept the looting from becoming pogrom. Especially great bloodshed took place in the village of Volkovca. Bodies of murder victims floating on the Dniester were retrieved by the Jews of Mielnica and buried in the cemetery.
After several days of general anarchy, on July 8, 1941, the Hungarians entered Mielnica and established a large military presence in the city. Officers took up residence in Jewish homes, treating Jews with a decency comparable to that shown Christians, and often sharing food with their hosts. The Hungarian command imposed order and put an end to killing, looting, and housebreaking. The farmers who had come into Mielnica from the surrounding area were dispersed. In exchange for this, the Hungarians demanded that the Jews supply them with food and goods, and coerced them to serve and work for the army. The following representatives of the Jewish council which had been organized in those days maintained contact with the Hungarians: David Mancer, Leibush Schwarcz, Rabbi Donner, Ch. Feuerstein, Richter the pharmacist, and Moshe Kopler.
Suddenly, after two weeks of calm, the Hungarians arrested and incarcerated a number of Jewish men and women on the eve of July 17, 1941. This arrest was carried out following denunciation by the Ukrainians, who brought the Hungarians a list of alleged Communists in town - 146 Jews and 4 Ukrainians. The prisoners were treated very rudely but were released after a short time, evidently through the intervention of the Jewish delegation with the Hungarian commander.
The Hungarians brought to Mielnica several truckloads of Jewish refugees from Carpatoros. These refugees were starved and weak, shoeless and threadbare, and had been robbed and beaten on the way by the Ukrainians. The Jews of the town aided the refugees as much as their means allowed, inviting them into their homes, feeding them, and collecting clothing for them.
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August 9
Secret meetings between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill begin off the coast of Newfoundland. They will result in the Atlantic Charter, which contains eight points of agreement on the aims of the war.
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August
When authority passed directly to the Germans in August 1941, a Jewish council was established in Mielnica. It included respected members of the community and public figures who had been active during the days of the Hungarians. Among the other members of the delegation mentioned above, we know the names Itche Fischler, S. L. Scharfstein, Munyu Roth, Izio Reich, Nathan Sohnenklahr, and Joseph Kesselblat.
Under Hungarian rule the situation of the Jews of Mielnica became severe. They were forbidden to stroll in the city's center, and the men were forced into hard labor: unloading and loading, paving and repair of roads, breaking of stones for paving, work on surround estates which had been taken over by the Germans. In addition, a derogatory star-of-David ribbon was instituted (though even under the Hungarians it had not been uncommon to mark Jews with a yellow star sewn to the clothing). The Jews were left with no means of livelihood, the poor among them being hired out as workers on Ukrainian farms. This contact enabled them to purchase needs whose official sale to Jews was banned.
Along with its responsibility of regularly supplying the Germans with manpower, the Jewish council was required to give them money, jewelry, merchandise and furniture, clothing and shoes, and surplus food items on a permanent basis. German border guards were billeted in the Zilberbusch home, and the Jewish council was forced to equip the building with furniture and appliances, which it procured from wealthy Jews or bought from Christians. The German border guards enjoyed getting drunk, rioting through the town and harassing Jews whom they happened to encounter in the streets. They broke into houses at night and raped young girls. Many Jews never undressed for the night or simply slept out of their houses until dawn. Gestapo men from Czortkov would often fan out over Mielnica, demanding money and merchandise in exchange for false promises to protect Jews from new edicts. The Jewish populace complained to the Jewish council because it had no power to prevent such abuses.
September 6
The German SS announce a policy to take effect on September 19: "Jews who have completed their sixth year are forbidden to show themselves in public without the Jewish star. This consists of a six-pointed star, outlined with black superscription, 'Jew'. It must be worn visibly and sewn securely to the left breast of clothing." The same announced policy prohibits Jews from leaving their residential areas without police permission.
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September 11
President Roosevelt issues an order that German or Italian ships sighted in U.S. waters will be attacked immediately.
September 29
German troops invading the Ukraine machine-gun to death between 50,000 and 96,000 Ukranians (of which at least 60 percent are Jews), in Babi Yar, a ravine about 30 miles outside of Kiev.
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October 11 Washington -- It is announced that 2,000 Japanese will be evacuated from the U.S. West Coast.
October 14 Massive deportations of German Jews to concentration camps begins.
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October 17
The Kearny, a U.S. destroyer, is torpedoed off the coast of Iceland by a German U-boat. On the 31st, the American destroyer Reuben James is sunk by a German U-boat, killing 100.
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November
MIELNITZA/MIELNICA, POLAND
Impressment of young Jewish men to the labor camps at Varkivialka and Stopki began in November 1941. The first time, the Germans demanded of the Jewish council that they bring 40 men to the gathering point in Czortkov.
(A memoir, by Florence Mayer Lieblich, provides a personal view of Czortkov and the times 1923-1939)
The Jewish council selected men whose families had at least two sons or two wage earners. Those were to go were given warm clothing.
Some time later, however, when the Germans demanded 70 men, no one came forward because the terrible conditions at the labor camps had become known. This time the German and Ukrainian police launched a manhunt in the houses and streets. The third dispatch of people to the labor camps included 50 women who had until then worked at the neighboring tobacco plantations. They were abducted and transported by the Germans to an unknown work site.
A small number of Mielnica Jews succeeded in escaping from the town and hiding in forests or familiar farmhouses. Most of them were killed as a result of denunciation by the Ukrainian residents, or were discovered by the police. Some local Jews and some who were refugees from Hungary attempted to cross the border into Bukovina with the aid of Ukrainian smugglers in exchange for large sums of money, and from there to Czernowitz. Most of the escapees, however, were caught there by the police, brought back to the border point at Sniatin, and handed over to the Germans, who murdered them on the spot.
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December 7
Just before 8 a.m., Honolulu time, 360 Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military base on the Hawiian island of Oahu. The attack cripples the U.S. Pacific fleet, and kills more than 2,300 American soldiers, sailors, and civilians. The attack precedes Japan's formal declaration of war, which is delivered by the Japanese foreign minister to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo more than seven hours later.
The Providence Journal "War Edition" cover
Americans remembering Pearl Harbor
Roosevelt's fireside chat with the nation following the bombing
December 8
President Roosevelt addresses the U.S. Congress, saying that December 7 is "a date that will live in infamy." After a vote of 82-0 in the U.S. Senate, and 388-1 in the House, in favor of declaring war on Japan, Roosevelt signs the declaration of war. (See Roosevelt's famous address to Congress requesting that war be declared.)
December 11
Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S. President Roosevelt calls an end to official U.S. neutrality in the war in Europe, declaring war on Germany and Italy.
View The Providence Journal cover, December 12th.
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Approximately 130,000 Jews now live in Germany.
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December
MIELNITZA/MIELNICA, POLAND
A severe night attack occurred in December 1941: the Germans broke into many Jewish homes, even that of Rabbi Donner, abusing the rabbi and degrading his wife. Several Jewish homes were set afire and some Jews were murdered. Next day, when Rabbi Donner and Moshe Kopler came to complain to the commander of the border patrol in the name of the Jewish council, the rabbi was beaten and thrown down the stairs. After this incident, Moshe Kopler served as council chairman.
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CHRONOLOGY OF THE HOLOCAUST - USA WW II Timeline1939-1945: (2)
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Home -
Introduction -
Prologue -
Preface -
Table of Contents -
Chapter 1 -
Chapter 2 -
Chapter 3 -
Chapter 4 -
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 6 -
Chapter 7 -
Chapter 8 -
Chapter 9 -
Chapter 10 -
Guest Book -
References
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