Introduction to Night: World War II Timeline

1. Introduction to Night:World War II Timeline 9th Lit/Comp—Geller Fall 2013

2. 1928 September 30, Elie Wiesel born in Sighet, Transylvania (Romania).

3. 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi party takes control of Germany's government.

4. 1933 The first permanent concentration camp, Dachau, is established.

5. 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews are decreed, depriving Jews of German citizenship.

6. 1936 The SS renames its units deployed at concentration camps the "Death's Head Units," later known as "Death's Head Battalions." Caption: SS officers wore patches to distinguish themselves as “Death Head Units.”

7. 1936 Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler is appointed chief of the German Police. The summer Olympic games are H hosted in Berlin.

8. 1937 Japan invades China proper, initiating the Pacific War that would become a part of World War II.

9. 1938 Kristallnacht (night of crystal, also known as the night of broken glass): a government-organized pogrom against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia results in widespread destruction of synagogues, businesses, and homes and the loss of at least 91 lives in November.

10. Kristallnacht Kristallnacht

11. 1939 Hitler violates Munich Agreement of 1938 by invading and dismembering Czechoslovakia. In September, Germany invades Poland, starting World War II in Europe.

12. 1939 In November, the first ghetto is established in Piotrków, Poland.

13. 1939 Jews in parts of occupied Poland are forced to wear armbands bearing the Star of David for identification.

14. 1940 In spring, Germans conquer Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.

15. . In May, Auschwitz concentration camp is established. Italy declares war on Britain and France in June. http://www.remember.org/auschwitz/info.php?topic=info&start=yes&size=l&fmt=qtvr&ex=aus

16. In August, at German and Italian arbitration, Romania is compelled to cede northern Transylvania, including Sighet, to Hungary. In autumn, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia join the German-Italian alliance, called the Axis. German authorities begin to seal off ghettos in German-occupied Poland. • Elie Wiesel and his family become residents of Hungary.

17. 1941 • Nazi Germany attacks the Soviet Union on June 22. The British and the Soviets sign a Mutual Assistance agreement. • The U.S. enters World War II on December 8, a day after Germany's Axis partner, Japan, attacks the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. • Twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel begins studying the Kabbalah.

18. 1942 The Wannsee Conference held in Berlin in January in Berlin ensures the full cooperation of all state, Nazi Party, and SS agencies in implementing "the Final Solution"- a plan to murder the European Jews-under the coordination of the SS and police.

19. 1943 Jews in the Warsaw ghettorise up against their oppressors. By the end of the year, the Germans and their Axis partners have killed more than four million European Jews.

20. 1944 • On June 6, D-Day, Anglo-American forces establish the first Allied beachhead in western Europe on the Normandy coast of France. • On June 22, Soviet forces begin a massive offensive and advance to the outskirts of Warsaw in six weeks. • Anne Frank's family is arrested by the German occupation authorities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. • Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler orders a halt to the "Final Solution" in November 1944 and orders the destruction of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau • Elie Wiesel is fifteen years old when he and his family are deported in May 1944 by the Hungarian gendarmerie and the German SS and police from Sighet to Auschwitz.

21. 1945 • Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz on January 27. - SS units evacuate Auschwitz in January. -Elie and his father are transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp • U.S. troops liberate Buchenwald on April 11. - Elie is liberated with the arrival of U.S. troops in April. • Germany surrenders on May 7; • World War II in Europe ends on May 8. • On September 2, the Pacific War ends with the surrender of Japan after the U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. • World War II is over. • The United Nations is founded. • On November 20, the trial of the top Nazi leaders begins in Nuremberg under the auspices of the International Military Tribunal. • indict 22 top-ranking Nazi leaders and six German and Nazi Party organizations for crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

22. 1946 Eighteen of 22 defendants are convicted by the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trial; 12 are sentenced to death.

23. 1948 The State of Israel is created. On May 14, 1948, the last British forces withdraw from Palestine and the State of Israel is established in accordance with the United Nations Partition Plan that proposed the partition of Palestine into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state. • The U.S. Congress passes the Displaced Persons Act, authorizing 200,000 displaced persons to enter the United States. • On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the United Nations approves the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide" as an international crime, which signatory nations "undertake to prevent and punish." • Elie Wiesel studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. He becomes interested in journalism.

24. 1949 Elie Wiesel goes to Jerusalem for the first time.

25. 1951 The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force.