January 20 , 1941: Lodz Ghetto, three Jews die from hunger and cold, Icek Brona, Ita Kinster and Abram Szmulewicz. 2,000 other Warsaw Ghetto Jews die of hunger in January.
January 21 , 1941: Rumania; the Iron Guard raids thousands of Jews, destroys hundreds of shops, and looted or burned twenty five synagogues. 120 Jews were cruelly tortured and killed.
January 22 , 1941: Lublin, Poland; Hans Frank speaks at a Nazi Party. "We...can not be asked to have any consideration left for the Jews."
January 29 , 1941: Lodz Ghetto, Bluma Lichtensztajn commits suicide. Painter, Maurycy Trebacz dies of hunger. (One of five thousand Jews who will die of hunger over the next six months.)
January 30 , 1941: Hitler repeats his threats of anihalation of the Jews at a programmatic speech he makes in front of the Reichstag.
January 31 , 1941: Three thousand Jews taken from their villages and moved into Warsaw ghetto. Another 70,000 Jews would be uprooted and moved into the Warsaw ghetto by the end of March.
February 15 , 1941: 1,000 Jewish men per week for five weeks would be deported from Polish towns and placed in the Kielce and Lublin ghettos.
February 27 , 1941: Amsterdam; In retaliation to an innocent incident, Germans arrest 425 Jewish men, beat them and deport 389 of them to Buchenwald concentration camp. Two months later 364 of them are transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp. Ten of them commit suicide. By Autumn, none of the men were alive.
March 1 , 1941: Bulgaria officially joins the Tripartite Pact signed previously by Germany, Italy and Japan.
March 3 , 1941: Amsterdam: Ernst Cahn, resistor to the Germans, was shot by firing squad. First man to be shot in Holland since the German occupation ten months earlier.
March 12 , 1941: 13 year old shot dead by a sentry in the Lodz ghetto.
March 18 , 1941: This week, 200 Jews would die from hunger in Warsaw ghetto. The prior week, 400 died of hunger.
March 19 , 1941: 34 year old Rafal Krzepicki was shot dead by sentry of Lodz ghetto.
March 26 , 1941: 44 year old Chana Lewkowicz was shot dead in Lodz ghetto.
April 6 , 1941: Germans invade Yugoslavia and Greece on Palm Sunday.
April 7 , 1941: Kielce, 16,000 Jews driven into a ghetto. It was immediately closed. All were shut in.
April 13 , 1941: German troops enter Belgrade Yugoslavia. 75,000 more Jews would now fall under the German yoke. Jewish shops that day were ransacked.
April 14 , 1941: Hungarian troops occupying northern Yugoslavia seize 500 Serbs and Jews and shot them.
April 12 , 1941: Lodz ghetto; Germans announce publicly that anyone caught leaving the ghetto would be shot.
April 16 , 1941: Sarajevo is occupied by the Germans. Central synagogue is demolished.
April 21 , 1941: A mentally ill woman was forced by the sentries to dance by the barbed entrance to the Lodz Ghetto. When she was done they shot her dead.
May 10 , 1941: Suresnes, France; Aaron Beckermann, first Jew in France to be shot for resistance.
May 11 , 1941: Warsaw ghetto; Children seen playing with a corpse in a courtyard. In each of the prior two months, 500 - 600 more Jews died of starvation. Same day, Hess flies to Britain and discusses the possibility of peace. Hitler denounces Hess' act as that of a lunatic.
May 15 , 1941: Twelve transported Jewish prisoners-of-war, are shot dead as a reprisal for the escape of four others, en route from Biala Podlaska to Konskowola, Poland.
May 20 , 1941: France; More laws are put into place restricting Jewish movements in all aspects of life. Same day Goering commands that no Jew would be allowed to emigrate from any occupied territory..."in view of the imminent final solution". First official reference of THE FINAL SOLUTION.
June 2 , 1941: French law calls for ‘administrative arrest' for all Jews.
June 22 , 1941: OPERATION BARBAROSSA; Germany invades the Soviet Union. 2,000,000 more Jews would soon be under German oppression. This day would see the start of systematic destruction of Jewish towns and communities. German killing squads, the Einsatgruppen would begin to organize local collaborators in Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukrainian states. Thousand of Jews would be killed within the next few days.
June 25 , 1941: The town of Luck; Dr. Benjamin From (47) refuses to stop his operation, so he is dragged out of operating room, taken to his home and killed with his entire family.
June 26 , 1941: Kovno, Soviet Union; hundreds of Jews are seized and murdered. Same day, the Germans reach Bialystok. In Kovno, Lithuanian nationalists, happy to help the "liberating" Germans, exterminate 4,000 during a two day period.
June 27 1941: RED FRIDAY: Bialystok, Poland; German units begin to randomly shoot Jews. 800 are locked in the Synagogue, then it is set on fire. More are forced in during the blaze. Resisters are shot. The Germans threw hand grenades into Jewish homes. By the end of the day, 2,000 Jews were murdered. Similar horrors take place in Minsk.
June 28 , 1941: Chief of Gestapo, Henirich Muller, sends Eichman to review the destruction in Bialystok and Minsk.
June 28 , 1941: Kovno, Lithuania; Police release convicts to hunt down Jews, beating hundreds to death.
June 29 , 1941: Jassy, Rumania; soldiers and police, under the watch of the SS, kill over 260 Jews. 5,000 other Jews are stripped of all belongings and then placed into cattle cars, ( over 100 in each), and sent to Mirteshet. On the way over 600 Jews would die. Once there another 327 would die. Within an eight day period, over 2,500 people would die during the train ride.
June 30 , 1941: Germans enter Lvov, Soviet Union, third largest Jewish Community after Warsaw and Lodz. Thousands of Jews would be tortured and slaughtered at the hands of rampaging mobs. Amsterdam: 300 Jews deported to work camps.
July 3 , 1941: Nowogrodek; Fifty volunteers are requested to be members of the Jewish council there. They are taken away and never seen again. Fifty more were shot in the town square. In Vilna, All Jews are required to wear identity badges.
July 4 , 1941: Lithuanian militiamen murder 416 Jewish men, 47 Jewish women in Kovno.
July 5 , 1941: After 54 Jews were shot the prior day, 93 more are killed in Vilna by members of the Einsatzkommando unit. In Lvov, Ukrainians continue to kill Jews from their homes including a 49 year old ophthalmologist, Kornelia Graf-Weisenberg, and her daughter.
July 5 , 1941: The Nuremberg law is extended to include Czech citizens.
July 6 , 1941: Lithuanian militiamen murder 2,514 Jews in Kovno.
July 7 , 1941: A Einsatzkommando unit begins systematic killings of Lithuanian Jews.
July 8 , 1941: The first of the Ponary Executions begin. Hundreds of Jews are taken to the resort of Ponary, stripped of all belongings, marched to the edge of a fire pit and then shot into the pit.
July 9 , 1941: Hungary invades the eastern Ukraine.
July 10 , 1941: 1,600 Vilna Jews are tortured then driven into a barn and burned alive.
July 10 , 1941: German Troops 120 Miles from Moscow.
July 15 , 1941: Command of Eastern Ukraine is handed over from the invading Hungarians to the Germans.
July 16 , 1941: Hitler convinced of overall victory lays out his objectives; "In principle, it is important to divide up this vast cake properly so as to enable us 1. to rule it, 2. to administer it, 3. to loot it.
July 17 , 1941: Kishinev, Soviet Union; Over the next 14 days over 10,000 Jews would be slaughtered.
July 21 , 1941: Minsk; 45 Jew were ordered to dig a pit. They were then thrown in and Russian prisoners were ordered to bury them alive. The Russians refused. The Germans then shoot Russian and Jew alike in the pit.
July 24 , 1941: An Einsatzgruppe report states that 4,435 Jews were liquidated in the town of Lachowicze.
July 25 , 1941: The Petlura Action: A three day massacre in Lvov. 2,000 more Jews either are killed or disappear.
July 27 , 1941: German and Rumanian troops enter Kishinev, Soviet Union. 5,000 Kishinev Jews would be executed within a week. In retaliation to Jewish resistance, 1,200 Jews are taken from Belgrade to the labor camp at Tasmajdan. 120 of them are taken to Jajinci and shot.
July 28 , 1941: As German troops over run Russian territory, the killings increase in frequency and numbers. In Drohobycz, Galicia, hundreds of Jews are massacred throughout the night.
July 29 , 1941: 29 mental patients from Lotz were taken away by truck and shot in the woods.
July 31 , 1941: Goering commands Heydrich, "to carry out all the necessary preparations with regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence." - That influence now covered a dozen countries. - "I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan... for the execution of the intended FINAL SOLUTION of the Jewish question."
August 1 , 1941: Heydrich informs Himmler, " that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed Eastern Territories." Everyday in every village and town, Jews would be hunted down, molested, tortured, and executed. Kishenev, another 1,000 Jews were shot. Bialystok ghetto is set up this day and led by the Judenrat.
August 2 , 1941: Kovno, over 200 Jews are shot.
August 3 , 1941: Czenowitz; 1,200 Jews arrested, 682 of them are executed. Mitau; 1,550 are removed from the town. Stanislawow; hundreds of doctors are shot.
August 5 , 1941: The killings continue. Rasaininai, 213 men and 66 Jewish woman are murdered.
August 9 , 1941: 510 Jews reported killed in Brest-Litovsk. 296 Jews killed in Bialystok
August 15, 1941: Last of the remaining 25,000 Jews in Kovno were removed to Viampole. 600 Jews taken from Stawiski and all shot in nearby woods. Rokiskis; a massacre begins that leaves 3,200 men, women and children, shot by the next evening.
August 17 , 1941: 300 men in Khmelnik, Ukraine, were gathered together and shot dead. Deaths justified by Einsatzkommando as retaliation for Jewish resistance.
August 18 , 1941: Germans now take over authority of Kovno and seal off the ghetto. Looting and killing of the Intelligensia soon follow.
August 24 , 1941: Churchill broadcasts to British people that as German troops advanced, "whole districts were being exterminated." He does not mention that it is the Jews getting killed.
August 25 , 1941: The fate of 11,000 displaced Hungary Jews (forced laborers), now living in Kamenets Podolsk, is fixed for liquidation over the next two days as Hungary does not want to take them back.
August 27, 1941: First group of 11,000 Jews from Kamenets are taken out of town to a pit and machine gunned down in bomb craters.
August 28 , 1941: Ghettos were established throughout the Ukraine.
August 28 , 1941: Kedainiai; 710 men, 767 women, 599 Jewish children were forced into a giant ditch and were all shot dead. Lislie Gordon's (a laborer) father, mother, four brothers, and younger sister are all shot dead.
August 29 , 1941: Remainder of 11,000 Kamenet Laborers are taken out of town to a pit and machine gunned down.
August 30 , 1941: SS at Chelmo work camp orders fifty Jewish workers to dig trenchs. Five are shot at a time, as five would dig a new trench, until all but the last five are killed.
August 31 , 1941: Churchill receives 17 reports of the shooting of Jews and Russians in numbers ranging between 61 and 4,200.
August 31 , 1941: Vilna; in response to a Jewish reprisal on a German patrol, all Jews are confined to their homes. That evening the "action" commences. The entire Jewish section of Vilna raided. 2,019 women, 864 men, and 817 children were taken away to pits in Ponar forests and all shot dead.
September 1 , 1941: Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn - "The element that settled our cities (Jews). . . must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved."
September 3 , 1941: Germans hang three Jewish brothers in Dubossary. 600 elderly Jews of Dubossary were thrown out of their homes, brought into eight synagogues, where each temple was then burned to the ground.
September 3 , 1941: Auschwitz; Germans experiment on Polish opponents and Jews. They test the effectiveness of Cyclon B. All were killed. A successful test.
September 6 , 1941: Vilna; despite establishment of ghetto, Jews are daily taken away. On this day, 3,434 Jews were taken to Ponar to be shot.
September 12 , 1941: Vilna; 1,267 Jews were taken to Polna to be shot. General Keital informs his commanders, "The struggle against Bolshevism demands ruthless and energetic measures, above all against the Jews."
September 13 , 1941: 11 Jews finally die after two months of torture in Piotrkow, General Gouvernment.
September 16 , 1941: Jews from the town of Uman were brought to ditches at the airfield upon the excuse of taking a town census. SS officers systematically go down the line with pistols and shoot each Jew, men, woman and children alike. Estimated death; 22,000.
September 17 , 1941: Several thousand Jews taken from Kovno, locked in synagogues for three days, then brought to prepared ditches and all shot dead. Entire families wiped out.
September 18 , 1942: Himmler states in a letter to Autur Greiser that Hitler is demanding that the ‘original Reich and the Protectorate be cleaned out from west to east and be rid of Jews as quickly as possible.'
September 22 , 1941: Rosh Hoshona; This day saw the beginning of a new intensity of slayings. In Vinnitsa, Ukranian militia, trained by the SS, kill an estimated 23,000 Jews. Sweeping through town on horseback, soldiers wield swords to chop down innocents. 4,000 Jews in Ejszyszki were slaughtered.
September 24 , 1941: Wolkowysk; 2,000 women and children taken from the ghetto and murdered.
September 25 , 1941: In Kovno, the Germans give the Jewish Council 5,000 work passes, placing upon them the burden of choosing who shall work and live, and who shall die.
September 26 , 1941: Kovno; SS shoot 412 men, 615 women, 581 children. (Jews described as sick people and carriers of epidemics.) Ejszyszki Jews shot in batches of 250.
September 27 and 28, 1941: Over 30,000 Jews gather in Kiev, still believing that they were being resettled. Brought to the ravine at BABI YAR, were they are ruthlessly shot down by machine gun. By the hundreds, men, women and children fall into the ravine, as they're rittled with bullets. One woman, gave birth in the middle of the slaughter.
September 29 , 1941: In retaliation for Russian bombs in Kiev, German authorities assemble 30,000 Jews, take them to the forest and slaughter them over the next two days.
October 2 , 1941: Hitler commences his attack on Moscow.
October 2 , 1941: Yom Kippur; The killings continue. Zalgar; 633 men, 1,017 women, 496 children. Butrimonys, 976 Jews murdered in front of Lithuanian crowds seated on benches for "a good view." Vilna, 3,000 more Jews taken and sent to Ponar to be shot.
October 4 , 1941: In Kovno, 1,500 Jews without work passes were taken away to be shot. Kovno hospital sealed shut and burned to the ground with everyone still in it.
October 4 , 1941: Heydrich draws up plans for the future deportation of Jews from Czechoslovakia.
October 6 , 1941: Dvinsk Ghetto. Two days of "selection" and slaughter begin, where only those with work passes are spared death. Number of dead is unknown.
October 7 , 1941: Rowne, Volhunia; over 17,000 Jews taken from their homes, marched to pits, and slaughtered by the SS and local militia.
October 9 , 1941: Hans Frank tells the ministers of the General Government in Cracow; "As far as Jews are concerned. . .I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with one way or another."
October 12 , 1941: Stanislawow, Eastern Gallicia; the whole district of Jews, were driven out of their homes into the center of the town were massive graves had been dug. SS troops and Ukrainian militia commence machine gunning of the gathered populace. Over 6,000 Jews would be killed that day, Hoshana Rabba, (the Great Prayer day.)
October 16 , 1941: In response to Hitler's plea that all Jews must leave Germany, the first of twenty trains leaves Germany for the East. Jews from Luxemburg and Vienna are part of the deportation. Within the next month 19,827 Jews from the Riech would be sent to Lodz.
October 22 , 1941: ODESSA "ACTION" Rumanian command headquarters blown up. 17 Rumanians and 4 Germans killed. In reprisal for this apparent act of defiance over 5,000 Jews are rounded up in Odessa and shot dead the next day.
October 23 , 1941: Odessa "action" continues. 19,000 more Jews are gathered into the city square, sprayed with gasoline and burned alive.
October 23 , 1941: Father Berhard Lichtenberg arrested for protesting against German deportation of the Jews. He dies on his way to Dachau.
October 24 , 1941: 6,000 work passes are distributed in Vilna. This means 4,000 Jews without work passes would be sent to their doom in Polna. They were hunted down by the Lithuanians. 885 of the dead were children. ODESSA ACTION Continues; After two days of thousands murdered, an additional 16,000 Jews are taken from Odessa and sent to Dalnik. In Dalnik, they were all shot in ditches, machine gunned down, or burned alive in warehouses.
October 25 , 1941: Einsatzgruppen report to Berlin complains the local population of White Russia was not being helpful in the various ‘actions.' Therefore the Germans themselves would have to step up efforts. BIRTH OF THE GAS CHAMBER: That day in Germany Dr. Viktor Brack is ready to roll out the new plan for mass execution: "the installation of the necessary buildings and gas plants." Eichman approves of this method. Such a procedure would assure a systematic method of extinguishing the Jews and reduce ‘incidents' of public killings. A new policy was being established; the cloaked and secret killings of millions of Jews, away from the eyes of witnesses.
October 26 , 1941: After the ODESSA ACTION of October 23, 24, 25, and the death of over 20,000 Jews, 10,000 more are sent to various concentration camps from that City.
October 27 , 1941: In the Polish town of Kalisz a large black truck drives up and takes on a passenger load of Jews. Escorted by two Gestapo cars, the truck drives away. Its passengers are never heard from again. The first of the gas-wagons.
October 28 , 1941: Eichmann notes "in view of the approaching final solution of the European Jewry problem, one has to prevent the immigration of Jews into the unoccupied area of France."
October 28 , 1941: Kovno; Entire population of 27,000 Jews gather in Democracy Square for "selection." Those ordered to the LEFT, lived. Those ordered to the RIGHT, (to be "relocated" elsewhere) died. By now, no one was fooled as to their fate.
October 29 , 1941: The SS and Lithuanian police carry out the brutal massacre of those Kovno Jews who were not "selected" the prior day for work. In groups of a hundred, Jews were stripped naked, marched to the edge of ditches, and then fired upon. Most were killed instantly. Many were left to die slowly of their wounds. Einsatskommando report: 2,008 men, 2,920 women, 4,257 children.
October 31 , 1941: 200 Jews killed in Kleck when its council members tried to make contact with non-Jews from outside the ghetto.
November 3 , 1941: Einsatzgruppe B report; 80,000 Jews have been killed in the Ukraine up to this point.
November 4 , 1941: Last of a twenty train convoy makes its way from Germany to the Lodz ghetto. In all, 19,837 Jews were taken. Banishment becomes official as the Reich Trusry issues directives that "Jews not employed in businesses of importance to the people's economy will be banished to one of the cities in the East. The property of the Jews who are to be banished will be confiscated.
November 6 and 7, 1941: Rovno, Ukraine; 17,500 Jews taken to the forests and ordered to dig five large pits. Bitter cold, they were ordered to strip. Then they are all murdered over a two day period.
November 6 , 1941: Minsk; 12,000 Jews killed in the latest "action."
November 9 , 1941: After the slayings in Minsk, (latest of November 6) thousands of German Jews began to be imported into the town. They were put in a ghetto of their own.
November 14 , 1941: In a message to the Jewish Chronicle Winston Churchill recognizes the Jewish suffering. "None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew... The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazis' first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity."
November 17 , 1941:Warsaw; Eight Jews executed for going outside the Warsaw ghetto without permission. Six were women.
November 19 , 1941: In the West, gassing was becoming the popular method of exterminating the Jews. Eichman moves forward on his plans for the deportation of Jews.
November 24 , 1941: A ghetto is set up in Theresienstadt. Jews begin to be sent there by Eichmann from all corners of the Reich. Eventually it would be a major center for the gathering and redeporation of Jews to the death camps.
November 25 , 1941: The resettlement of German Jews into Kovno give the SS new targets for their killing raids. Einsatzkommando report: 1,159 men, 1,600 women, 175 Children. Four days later the report notes; 693 men, 1,155 women, 152 children.
November 27 , 1941: The first of 19 trains leaves Germany to resettle thousands of Jews in Riga and Kovno. Yet, 1000 newly resettled German Jews were taken and killed at the same time.
November 29, 1941:Kovno Massacre of the Ghetto. Estimated 10,600 people would be killed over the next few days.
November 30, 1941: Jews begin to arrive at Theresienstadt from Prague.
December 1 , 1941: Einsatzkomando Report: Only 15% of Lithuanian Jews were left alive.
December 3 , 1941: Amidst the misery of the Lodz Ghetto, a newly arrived Viennese Pianist, Leopold Birkenfeld holds a concert for his fellow Jews. He plays Shubert, Liszt and Beethoven brilliantly.
December 5 , 1941: Nowogrodek: 7,000 Jews were collected in the town courtyard. After a night in the court yard, the Jews were selected to the left for work, or to the right for death. 5,000 of the Jews went to the right.
December 7 , 1941: JAPAN ATTACK PEARL HARBOR: The United States enters the War.
December 8 , 1941: 700 Jews brought to Chelmo for final experiment of the new method of killing. In groups of 80, the Jews are driven around the woods in a special van, gassed to death by the fumes of the exhaust. A thousand Jews a day for the next four days go through the same test. AS THE AMERICANS ENTER THE WAR, GERMANY ENTERS ITS FORMAL STAGE OF THE FINAL SOLUTION.
December 7 - 9 , 1941: 25,000 more Riga Jews were put to death by SS and Latvian firing squads. 20% of original Jewish population in Riga was now left. This ghetto was now ready to house German Jew deportees.
December 12 , 1941: Riga; a second action in two weeks. Germans kill another estimated 12,000 ghetto dwellers.
December 13 - 15, 1941: 14,300 Jews were killed in the Crimean city of Simferopol by the Einsatzkommando.
December 14 , 1941: Warsaw Ghetto; Jews by the hundreds are dying from hunger and the cold. Two more are shot dead at a funeral for a friend.
December 15 , 1941: Chanukah; In Paris, forty Polish Jews are shot for resistance.
December 17 , 1941: Lodz ghetto, in a specially appointed section for Gypsies, Dr. Dubski dies of spotted typhus while trying to treat the Gypsies for that disease. Two more Jewish doctors would die the same way.
December 18 , 1941: The Germans lay out the bodies of several thousand Soviet prisoners-of- war. Most of them were deliberately frozen to death the day before.
December 31 , 1941: Outside of Vilna, Abba Kovner, during meeting of groups of Jewish youth movements reads a manifesto, "Let us not go as sheep to the slaughter."