THE HOLOCAUST 1943

January 1943: Running out of Jews, the killings at Chelmno, Belzec and Sobribor slow down to a trickle. Berkenau would now be the center of attention. The commandant requests that human hair be sent for processing to the firm of Alex Zing. Going price was half a mark per kilogram.

January 4, 1943: Czestochowa; Members of the Jewish Fighting Organization resist a ‘selection' armed with only one gun and knife. As a reprisal, the Germans shoot 25 men.

January 6, 1943: Opoczno; Jews are told they will be sent to a neutral country as part of a special exchange program. 500 "Jews with relatives in Palestine" come out of hiding to register. All 500 are sent to Treblinka and are gassed.

January 9, 1943: Germany; Cloths taken off of the dead Jews are given to the German People's Winter Aid Campaign. The group complain that the cloths are soiled and stained with blood. Furthermore, ‘the Jewish stars had not been removed.'

January 13, 1943: Ribbentrop warns Italians that they would permit Jews to live in areas under German rule until March 31. After which, "the Government won't be able to make any exceptions."

January 14, 1943: Casablanca. Churchill and Roosevelt meet in North Africa to plan Allied invasion. Hope rises for some of the Jews who get word of meeting.

January 14, 1943: Lomza; Upon resistance by Jewish Council members, Germans select for themselves those Jews who should be taken away.

January 15, 1943: Zaslaw; Germans empty the detention camp at Zaslaw and place them in trains to be sent to Belzac to be gassed. Given neither food nor water, the train remained stationary for three days. All but one were eventually killed. He was Emil Manaster who was able to jump from the train and found sanctuary with his sister Jaffa, with Jozef Zwonarz, a Polish engineer.

January 18, 1943: Train from Belgium arrives at Auschwitz. 387 men and 81 women are sent to the barracks. 1,558 people were sent to the gas chamber.

January 18, 1943: Warsaw; After 4 months of no transports, the Germans enter the ghetto and begin deportation again to Treblinka. In rounding up people, the Germans went through the homes killing people, throwing them out of windows, and looting whatever they could. 5,000 Jews were rounded up, including 150 doctors. One, Dr. Izrael Milejkowski, commits suicide during the train ride.

January 19, 1943: Warsaw; Germans continue renewed round ups of Jews.

January 20, 1943: Train from Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz. 160 women, 80 men are sent to the barracks. 1,760 Jews were sent to the gas chambers. Of those from the barracks, only 2 would survive beyond the next six weeks of labor. These were all Jews who were already deported to Theresienstadt in 1941 from their homes throughout Austria and Czechoslovakia.

January 20, 1943: Himmler sends a letter to Reich Minister of Transport that he needs ‘ your help and support. If I am to wind things up quickly, I MUST HAVE MORE TRAINS.'

January 21, 1943: Warsaw; Germans open fire in the ghetto. Resistance is given by Jews seizing weapons and firing from rooftops with only 10 pistols. The Germans retreat after twelve are killed.

January 22, 1943: Birkenau; New to Birkenau, Rivka Libeskind recalls that on that night in the shacks they lit candles and began singing the Sabbath songs. Women who were there for years wept and joined the prayer session.

January 22, 1943: Marseilles; 4,000 Jews are seized under ‘Action Tiger'. Marseilles was marked as being the Jerusalem of the Mediterranean.

January 24, 1943: Auschwitz; During the past three weeks, fifteen trains reach the camp from Belgium, Holland, Berlin, Grodno and Bialystok. 4,000 sent to the barracks, 20,000 killed before their luggage could be sorted. To accommodate the rate of killing, four new crematoriums were constructed. 1,000 Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.

January 29, 1943: Wierzbica; Fifteen Poles were executed for helping out Jews.

February 1943: Germany requests that independent Hungary begin sending its Jews to Germany for forced labor.

February 1, 1943: Buczacz; Most of the 1,500 remaining Jews who were not sent earlier to Belzac were murdered. One survivor, Netka Goldberg, loses three sisters, two brothers and her mother. Her father would be killed seven months later.

February 4, 1943: Lvov; Germany kills four of the remaining 12 members of the Jewish Council there. (Eberson, Buber, Kimmelman, and Chigier.) Six others are sent to Janawska concentration camp.

February 5, 1943: Birkenau; For 14 hours the Jews stand in place, in the snow, during a roll call. Then each are beaten, chased or sent to the gas chamber.

February 5, 1943: Bialystock; For one week Germans are greeted with an armed uprising as they try to deport the final group of Bialystock Jews. By February 12th, 18,000 are in hiding. Still, during the month 9,000 Jews would be sent to Concentration Camps.

February 6, 1943: Himmler receives a report on the quantity of garments collected from Birkenau. 97,000 sets of men's clothing. 76,000 sets of women's clothing. 132,000 men's shirts.155,000 women's coats. 3,000 kilograms of women's hair. (The hair filling an entire railroad car.) Children's items included, 15,000 overcoats. 11,000 boys' jackets. 9,000 dresses. 22,000 pairs of shoes. The clothing filled 825 freight cars. Included in this inventory was also close to a half of million in American currency and $116,420 dollars in gold.

February 1943: 15 trains of deportees reach Birkenau from Holland, Drnacy (Paris) and from Berlin. 5,000 are gassed.

February 11, 1943: 123 children under the age of twelve are deported without their parents from Paris to the chambers of Birkenau.

February 12, 1943: Aizik Feder smuggles a letter out of Dancy, France, to his wife. "Tomorrow I am leaving. . . Courage! Courage! Courage!" The next day he is one of 1,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz. He and 311 others are tattooed with a number. The rest are killed. Only 20 of the 311 would survive the war.

February 13, 1943: Twelve young Jews who had escaped from the Bialystock ghetto deportations attack a German police unit at Lobpowy Most.

February 17, 1943: With major loses at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Germany's prospect of winning the war began to turn negative. Hitler flies to Zaporozhye for consultation with Souther front commander Marshal von Manstein.

February 19, 1943: Hitler claims to his Southern troops that the outcome of their battle will determine the fate of the world. The Germans recover position on their Russian front.

February 22, 1943: Bulgaria agrees to allow the Germans to deport 11,00 Jews. Horrible overcrowding conditions existed in the 20 trains that would transport them. Each day the trains stopped to dump the bodies of those who died during the journey.

February 22, 1943: Italians countermand German orders to deport French Jews. Three days later Ribbentrop complains to Mussolini that "Italian military circles. . . lacked a proper understanding of the Jewish question."

February 23, 1943: A division of the Red Army attacks the Germans at Alexseyevka, in the Ukraine. Many of those soldiers were Jews.

February 24, 1943: Hitler sends Nazi members a message on the anniversary of the party's establishment, "The struggle will end . . . with the liquidation of Jewry in Europe."

February 27, 1943: Lodz Ghetto; Work orders are increased, easing tensions within the ghetto since more Jews would be needed to work and less would be exposed to deportation.

March 2, 1943: Daily transports continue to Treblinka. Included are New York Born Yetta Flater and London born Helene Rosenberg. 300 of the deportees that day were over 70 years old.

March 4, 1943: Further deportation of people from Paris to Chelmno. Some were sent to Sobribor, others sent to Majdanek.

March 5, 1943: Ukraine; Over 1,000 Jews are murdered outside the Khmeilnik ghetto.

March 6, 1943: Swieciany, Ukraine; 20 youths armed with two revolvers escape the ghetto and hide in the forest.

March 8, 1943: The Sokolovo Czech battalion battles the Germans for three days. Of the 1,000 soldiers, 600 are Jews.

March 10, 1943: Bulgaria refuses to release 48,000 of its Jews to the Germans. This becomes known to the Bulgarians as a "miracle of the Jewish people."

March 13, 1943: Cracow, Poland; 2,000 Jews are rounded up for deportation. Before the trains leave hundreds of children are shot to death, hundreds of elderly were killed in the streets, patients were killed in the hospital wards.

March 14, 1943: Cracow deportation continues. Children younger than three years were flung into baskets and emptied like trash into ditches. They were buried alive. One child, Shachne Hiller, who survived due to the efforts of a Polish couple, was taken by them to a Polish pries for baptism. The Priest refused, thinking that it would be unfair to the wishes of the child's parents. The child survived. The Priest went on to become Pope John Paul II.

March 15, 1943: Theresienstadt ghetto; Trude Neumann dies of starvation. She was daughter of Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement. Same day, the Jews of the ancient Sepharidc community Salonica begin to be deported. By the end of March 10,000 would be moved. By the end of April, another 25,000.

March 16, 1943: Lvov; An SS officer was killed by a Jew named Kotnowski. In reprisal, the Germans hang 11 Jewish policeman from the balconies overlooking the main street of the Ghetto. Also over 1,000 Jews are taken away and shot.

March 18, 1943: Dr. Julian Charin is given up in his hiding place. He is shot.

March 20, 1943: Purim Eve, Czestochowa; Over 100 Jewish doctors and their families are taken away and shot. The meaning behind the factor-of-ten chosen was revenge for the ten sons of the Jew hater Hamen who were hanged in Biblical times.

March 21, 1943: Purim, Pitrkow; Told that they were to be exchanged with Germans, 10 Jewish men (required by the Germans to have a University degree) and their families, are trucked away, made to stand naked in front of open pits and then shot.

March 22, 1943: First of four new crematoriums at Auschwitz is ready for use and begins operation.

March 31, 1943: Crematorium II at Auschwitz begins operation.

April 4, 1943: Crematorium V at Auschwitz begins operation.

April 5, 1943: Treblinka; Upon realizing that they have been deceived people break apart the train cars and run away. Hundreds were shot during the break out attempt. The rest of the trainload would be executed as they are shot into open pits near Ponar. 5,000 more Jews arrived at Ponar and were mostly killed by the pits.

April 17, 1943: In a meeting at Klessheim Castle near Salzburg, Hitler meets with the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy, to urge them to deport their Jewish population. Hitler explains, ". . . they are just pure parasites. . . they had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli which in a healthy body may become infected." Horthy and Hungary continue to hold out against Hitler's demands.

April 18, 1943: Warsaw Ghetto; The Jewish inhabitants learn that the Germans are about to commence the final destruction of the ghetto.

April 19, 1943: PASSOVER, WARSAW UPRISING; The Jews were determined not to be moved without giving up a fight. 2,100 Germans, fully armed, enter the Ghetto. The Jews, armed with 17 pistols and several thousand grenades, open fire on the entering German troops. After an hour of skirmishing, the Germans retreat.

April 20, 1943: PASSOVER (2nd day) WARSAW UPRISING (second day); The ghetto becomes bombarded with mortars and machine guns. Germans kill all the sick in the Czyste hospital. Then they set the hospital on fire. Jewish resistance continues with grenades and home made bombs.

April 23, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Jewish resistance continues though supplies and weapons are at the bare minimum.

April 25, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Germans continue their invasion of the ghetto by lighting fires to buildings. Women and Children are shot to death and burned

April 27, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; The uprising continues, but by now 1000s of Jews are rounded up and marched away. But the Jews continue their counter attacks from rooftops above, doorways and windows. Jewish women and children are huddled in buildings by their protectors, only leaving upon those structures being set on fire.

April 28, 1943: Auschwitz; An SS telegram instructs that 120 women should be placed on a list for "various experimental purposes." That month, SS doctors castrate all males between the ages twenty and twenty four in Block 27.

April 29, 1943: Cracow; Jewish resistance fighters, captured in December escape from heir transport. They are mostly killed by machine gun. Captured Jewish Female fighters attack their captors, most of the women are killed by machine gun fire as well.

April 30, 1943: Wlodawa; 2,00 Jews deported to Sobribor attack their guards. All of the captives are killed by hand grenades and machine gun fire.

May 1, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Despair sets in as Jews hopelessly await their fate among continued fires and battling. The uprising was now into its 11th day.

May 3, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Twenty one women who escaped from the Ghetto during the uprising are caught and killed.

May 5, 1943: Zagreb, Yugoslavia; Himmler visits the city. Soon thereafter 1,400 Jews are deported.

May 7, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Pawel Burskin leads a group of Jewish fighters through the sewers to the "Aryan ‘ sector of the Ghetto. They are ambushed by German troops, captured and shot.

May 8, 1943: WARSAW UPRISING; Now only a modest, but last ditched effort of resistance takes place at 18 Mila Street. 120 Jewish fighters are bombarded in their bunkers. Only the shelling of gas bombs into the bunker would end the resistance. A few managed to escape, the rest suffocated from the gas attack. Included with the dead were Berl Broyde, and Mordecai Anielewicz. The Uprising ends. In all, 7,000 Jews are killed while fighting. 600 were blown up in their bunkers. 30,000 were sent to Treblinka.

May 12, 1943: WARSAW; Another round up of Jews who escaped from the Ghetto during the uprising are caught and executed. In London, Shmuel Zygielbogm commits suicide. He could not live ‘ when the remnant of the Jewish people in Poland . . . is being steadily annihilated.'

May 13, 1943: Hans Frank sends Hitler a list of the "Jewish concealed and stolen goods," that were recovered. 94,000 men's watches, 33,000 women's watches, 25,000 pens, 14,000 scissors. Many of the watches were melted down for their gold or platinum content.

May 15, 1943: Rohatyn; Jewish ghetto police secretly plan to buy weapons and form escape parties to the nearby woods. Three weeks later the plan is foiled and all 1,000 Jews of the ghetto are killed.

May 16, 1943: WARSAW; Jurgen Stroop reports to his commanders that the Warsaw Ghetto "is no longer in existence." The final action of close to three weeks of the WARSAW UPRISING was the blowing up of the Warsaw Synagogue. Systematically each street, building, structure, and bunker are destroyed while pockets of resistance continue.

May 19, 1943: Himmler sends Ernst Kaltenbrunner a copy of the book, The Jewish Ritual Murder, about the alleged Jewish use of Christian blood in the baking of Passover bread.

May 24, 1943: Auschwitz; Dr. Mengele arrives. Dr. Josef Mengele arrives at Auschwitz shortly after celebrating his thirty-second birthday. He begins conducting horrific medical experiments on the Jews. Aside from his ‘experiments' he would also personally inject his victims with phenol, gasoline, chloroform or air. With a waive of his hand, Mengele dispatched the old, injured, crippled, children, and pregnant women to their death in the gas chambers because they were not fit for work.

May 31, 1943: Cracow; Meeting of the General Government ministers. Lieutenant General Kruger notes that ‘on the Fuhrer's orders it is necessary for the (slaughter of the Jews) from the standpoint of European interests.

1943 Continued
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