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CHRONOLOGY OF THE HOLOCAUST
1942
January 2
Japanese troops capture Manila.
January 10
Japanese troops invade the Dutch East Indies.
January 14
An order from President Roosevelt requires all aliens to register with the government. This is the beginning of a plan to move Japanese-Americans into internment camps in the belief that these people might aid the enemy.
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January 15
Liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. Jews are transported to Chelmo death camp in central Poland.
January 20
The Wannsee Conference is held in Berlin. Under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazis announce what they call THE FINAL SOLUTION to the "Jewish problem". The final solution is the extermination of all European Jews. Thus begins massive deportations of Jews from all over the Reich to concentration camps in Poland. These deportations were merely the prelude to extermination.
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February 2
Congress appropriates 26.5 billion dollars for the U.S. Navy, bringing total U.S. war costs since June of 1940 to more than 115 billion dollars.
February 15
Japanese troops capture Singapore.
February 19
Executive Order 9066 is signed by President Roosevelt, authorizing the transfer of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans living in coastal Pacific areas to concentration camps in various inland states (and including inland areas of California). The interned Japanese-Americans lose an estimated 400 million dollars in property, as their homes and possessions are taken from them.
The Japanese-American internment experience.
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March 3
Under the War Relocation Authority, directed by Dillon S. Meyer, the U.S. "interns" 110,000 Japanese-Americans in "detention centers" for the duration of the war.
March 17
Deportation of Polish Jews to Belsen extermination camp begins.
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April 9
The Philippines fall to Japanese troops.
April 28
Coastal "dimouts" go into effect along a fifteen-mile strip on the Eastern Seaboard, in response to German U-boat activity of the U.S. Atlantic coast.
May 14
The U.S. Congress establishes The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), under the direction of Oveta Culp Hobby, editor of the Houston Post.
May 15
Gasoline rationing goes into effect in the Eastern United States. Nationwide rationing will begin in September.
May 20
American Negroes are allowed into a segregated U.S. army to fight world-wide fascism!
May 30
The first 1,000-bomber attack on German industrial targets is carried out by Britain's Royal Air Force, as the German city of Cologne is raided.
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June 1
Treblinka death camp opens northeast of Warsaw.
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June 6
In reprisal for the May 29 assassination of German Deputy Gestapo chief and "Protector" of Czechoslovakia, Reinhard Heydrich, German troops attempt to execute every male in the Czech village of Lidice (Bohemia), and they then set fire to the village.
June 13
President Roosevelt authorizes the creation of the U.S. Office on War Information (OWI). The first director is Elmer Holmes Davis, a CBS commentator and novelist.
June 21
German field marshal Erwin Rommel and his troops capture Tobruk, in Libya.
June 28
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) captures eight German agents that have landed by U-boat on Long Island.
July 16
French police round up 30,000 Parisian Jews, and German troops bus them out of the city to concentration camps. Approximately 30 will survive.
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July 21
Liquidation of ghettoes begins at Nieswiez, in Poland, and soon spreads to other ghettoes.
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July 30
The Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services (WAVES) is authorized by the U.S. Congress.
August 19
Canadian commando troops attack the coastal French city of Dieppe, but German defenders abort the raid and 3,500 Canadians are lost.
August 22
The Battle of Stalingrad begins. The battle will claim the lives of 750,000 Russian soldiers, 400,000 German soldiers, nearly 200,000 Romanian soldiers, 130,000 Italian soldiers, and 120,000 Hungarian soldiers.
September 16
The Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) are established in the U.S.. The armed forces will be supplied with more than 1000 auxiliary pilots through this organization.
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September 26th, First Aktion: MIELNITZA/MIELNICA, POLAND
Despite the decline in population because of deportation to the labor camps and because of flight, the number of Jews in Mielnica not only did not decrease, it actually increased during the period of the German conquest to about 2,500. This was because of the flow of refugees from Hungary, mentioned above, and later because of the flow of refugees and displaced persons from the surrounding villages. The last group of exiles was concentrated in Mielnica on September 25, 1942. Next day, on September 26, 1942, the first day of Sukkot in the year 5703, a liquidation Aktion took place in the town, conducted by Gestapo men from Czortkov. German and Ukrainian police surrounded the town and began shooting. People were abducted from the houses in the streets, brought to the marketplace, and made to sit with their hands on their necks. During the Aktion the sick, the weak, the handicapped, and those who had hidden out were summarily murdered. The police also shot those who attempted to escape. Some 100 to 300 persons were killed. The Ukrainian rabble looked at the murders and aided in the hunt for those in hiding. Those who were concentrated in the marketplace were brought to the railroad station in the village of Ivania-Pusta, 4 kilometers from the town. Some wagons transported those who could not walk fast. From this station they departed for the annihilation camp at Belz. The number of exiles, local Jews, and displaced persons is estimated variously as 1,200, 1,400 or 2,000. After the action several hundred Jews were left in the town. A portion of them were not discovered in hiding, and a portion were permitted by Germans to remain.
Among the latter were members of the Jewish council, the Jewish police, and the burial society. During the Aktion the Germans did not respect any work cards, and those who held such cards were sent to their deaths. (Jonas Lindenbaum's story b1917 Mielnitza, immigrated to the USA c 1946)
October 22, 1942, 2nd and Final Aktion
The next day, or perhaps some days after the Aktion, the German authorities let it be known that in two weeks (until October 22, 1942 according to another account) Mielnica was obligated to be Judenrein [clean of Jews] and that its remaining Jews were to move to the ghetto at Borshchov. The Jews loaded their remaining possessions on wagons and relocated to that ghetto. Before they left they hid several Torah scrolls under the floor of the great synagogue, Torah scrolls which they had until then managed to save from destruction. They took some Torah scrolls with them to Borshchov, where the fate of Mielnica's displaced Jews overtook them. (3)
Read Julius Rauch's story, (born in
Borschov), as told to me October 1, 1994
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November 7
A joint U.S.-British force of 400,000 troops, under the direction of General Eisenhower, begins landing at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. They will successfully overtake the French garrisons there.
November 10
In response to Mahatma Gandhi's demand that India be granted independence from Britain immediately, Prime Minister Churchill, in a speech at Mansion House, says "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."
December 1
In the U.S., coffee joins the list of rationed items.
December 2
At the University of Chicago's Staff Field, the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is realized by a team of scientists working under the name of the "Manhattan Engineering District."
December 24
In Germany, the first surface-to-surface guided missile is launched in Peenemunde. The rocket has been designed by 30 year-old rocket engineer Wernher von Braun.
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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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