1. January 30 1933 Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany.
  1. February 28 1933 The German government takes away freedom of speech, assembly, press, and freedom from invasion of privacy and from house search without warrant.
  1. March 20 1933 The first concentration camp is established in Nazi Germany at Dachau. The first prisoners are political opponents.
  1. April 1 1933 A nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany is carried out under Nazi leadership.
  1. April 7 1933 Jews are barred from government service; Jewish civil servants, including University professors and school teachers, are fired from their positions.
  1. April 25 1933 The law against "overcrowding in German schools and universities" is adopted, restricting the number of Jewish children allowed to attend. Children of war veterans and those with one non-Jewish parent are initially exempted.
  1. May 10 1933 Books by Jews and opponents of Nazism are burned publicly.
  1. July 14 1933 Laws are passed in Germany that permit the forced sterilization of Gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled, African-Germans, and others considered "inferior" or "unfit."
  1. October 19 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
  1. 1933-1935 In all German schools it is officially taught that "non-Aryans" are racially inferior. Jewish children are prohibited from participating in "Aryan" sports clubs, school orchestras, and other extracurricular activities. Jewish children are banned from playgrounds, swimming pools, and parks in many German cities and towns.
  1. August 3 1934 Adolph Hitler declares himself president and chancellor of the Third Reich after the death of Paul von Hindenburg.
  1. October 1934 First major wave of arrests of homosexuals occurs throughout Germany, continuing into November.
  1. January 13 1935 The Saar region is annexed by Germany.
  1. March 16 1935 Hitler violates the Versailles Treaty by renewing the compulsory military draft.
  1. April 1935 Jehovah's Witnesses are banned from all civil service jobs and are arrested throughout Germany.
  1. May 1935 "No Jews" signs and notices are posted outside German towns and villages, and outside shops and restaurants.
  1. May 21 1935 Jews are prohibited from serving in the German armed forces.
  1. September 15 1935 The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of their citizenship.
  1. March 3 1936 Jewish doctors are no longer permitted to practice in government institutions in Germany.
  1. March 7 1936 Hitler's army invades the Rhineland.
  1. July 12 1936 The first German Gypsies are arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp.
  2. August 1-16 1936 The Olympic Games take place in Berlin. Anti-Jewish signs (i.e., "Jews Not Welcome") are removed until the Games are completed.
  1. October 15 1936 The Ministry of Science and Education prohibits teaching by "non-Aryans" in public schools and bans private instruction by Jewish teachers.
  1. July 2 1937 Further restrictions are imposed on the number of Jewish students attending German schools.
  1. November 16 1937 Jews can obtain passports for travel outside of Germany only in special cases.
  1. March 13 1938 Germany annexes Austria.
  1. May 13 1938 The German government passes a decree requiring the registration of all Gypsies without a fixed address living in Austria; by June 1938, all Gypsy children above the age of 14 have to be fingerprinted. This is a central part of the growing racial definition of Gypsies as "criminally asocial."
  1. July 6-15 1938 Representatives from thirty-two countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee policies. Most of the countries refuse to let in more Jewish refugees.
  1. July 23 1938 The German government announces Jews must carry identification cards.
  1. November 7 1938 An attempt is made by Herschel Grynzpan to assassinate a German diplomat in Paris.
  1. November 9-10 1938 Kristallnacht-Night of Broken Glass
  1. November 12 1938 German Jews are ordered to pay one billion Reichsmarks in reparations for damages of Kristallinacht.
  1. November 15 1938 All Jewish children are expelled from German schools and can attend only separate Jewish schools.
  1. December 2-3 1938 Decrees ban Jews from public streets on certain days; Jews are forbidden drivers' licenses and car registrations.
  1. December 3 1938 Jews must sell their businesses and real estate and hand over their securities and jewelry to the government at artificially low prices.
  1. December 8 1938 Jews may no longer attend universities as teachers and/or students.
  1. March 15 1939 Germany invades and occupies Czechoslovakia.
  1. June 1939 Cuba and the United States refuse to accept Jewish refugees aboard the ship S.S. St. Louis, which is forced to return to Europe.
  1. June 5 1939 Two-thousand Gypsy males above the age of 16 are arrested in Burgenland Province (formerly Austria) and sent to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps; 1,000 Gypsy girls and women above the age of 15 are arrested and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.
  1. August 23 1939 Soviet-German Non-aggression Pact signed.
  1. September 1 1939 The German army invades Poland and World War II begins.
  1. September 23 1939 Jews are forced to turn in radios, cameras, and other electric objects to the police. Jews receive more restrictive ration coupons than other Germans. They do not receive coupons for meat, milk, etc. Jews also receive fewer and more limited clothing ration cards than do Germans.
  1. October 1939 Hitler extends powers to doctors to kill institutionalized mentally and physically disabled persons in the "euthanasia" program.
  1. November 23 1939 Germans force Jews in Poland to wear a yellow Star of David on their chests or a blue-and-white Star of David armband.
  1. November 28 1939 The first Polish ghetto is established.
  1. Spring 1940 The German army invades and defeats Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France.
  1. May 1-7 1940 Approximately 164,000 Polish Jews are concentrated and imprisoned in the Lódz ghetto which is established and sealed off from the outside world.
  1. May 20 1940 A concentration camp is established at Auschwitz, Poland.
  1. October 3 1940 Anti-Jewish laws are passed by France's Vichy Government.
  1. October 1940 The Warsaw ghetto is established.
  1. November 15 1940 The Warsaw ghetto is closed off with approximately 500,000 inhabitants.
  1. November 20 1940 Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia join the Axis Powers.
  1. March 22 1941 Gypsy and African-German children are expelled from public schools.
  1. March 24 1941 The German army invades North Africa.
  1. April 6 1941 The German army invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
  1. May 15 1941 Romania passes law condemning adult Jews to forced labor.
  1. June 1941 The French Vichy government revokes civil rights of French Jews in North Africa.
  1. June 22 The German army invades the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads, begin the mass murders of Jews, Gypsies, and Communist leaders.
  1. September 1 1941 German Jews above the age of six are forced to wear a yellow Star of David sewed on the left side of their clothes with the word "Jude" printed in black.
  1. September 23 1941 Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners are killed in Nazi test of gas chambers at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
  1. September 28-29 1941 Nearly 34,000 Jews are murdered by mobile killing squads at BabiYar, near Kiev in the Ukraine.
  1. October 1941 Construction begins on Birkenau, an addition to the Auschwitz camp. Birkenau includes a killing center which begins operations in early 1942.
  1. October-November 1941 First group of German and Austrian Jews are deported to ghettos in eastern Europe.
  1. November 5-9 1941 Five thousand Gypsies are deported from labor and internment camps in Austria to the Lódz ghetto in Poland.
  1. December 7 1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
  1. December 8 1941 The Chelmno death camp opens near Lódz, Poland and the first gassing of victims in mobile gas vans occurs.
  1. December 11 1941 Germany declares war on the United States.
  1. 1941-42December-January Five thousand Austrian Gypsies from the Lódz ghetto are deported to the killing center at Chelmno where they are all killed in mobile gas vans.
  1. 1942 Nazi "extermination" camps located in occupied Poland at Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Majdanek-Lublin begins mass murder of Jews in gas chambers.
  1. January 16 1942 Jews in the Lódz ghetto are deported to the killing center at Chelmno.
  1. January 20 1942 Fifteen Nazi and government leaders meet at Wannsee, a section of Berlin, to discuss the "final solution to the Jewish question".
  1. May 4-12 1942 Approximately ten thousand Jews, who had arrived in the Lódz ghetto some six months earlier from Germany, Luxembourg, Vienna, and Prague, are deported to Chelmno. Their baggage is confiscated before they board the train.
  1. June 1942 The German government closes all Jewish schools.
  1. June 1 1942 Treblinka death camp opens.
  1. June 1 1942 Jews in France and the Netherlands are required to wear identifying Stars of David.
  1. July 28 1942 Jewish fighting organizations established in the Warsaw ghetto.
  1. September 5-12 1942 Approximately fifteen thousand Jews in the Lódz ghetto are deported to Chelmno
  1. October 4 1942 All Jews in concentration camps in Germany are sent to death camp at Auschwitz.
  1. December 1 1942 A special internment camp for non-Jewish Polish youth is opened in Lódz.
  1. April 19-May, 161943 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto initiate resistance to deportation by the Germans to the death camps.
  1. March 1943 All Gypsies in Germany and Nazi occupied countries, with few exceptions, are arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
  1. June 1943 The Nazis order all of the ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union destroyed.
  1. August 2 1943 The inmates at Treblinka rebel.
  1. Fall 1943 The Danish citizens smuggle most of the nation's Jews to neutral Sweden.
  1. October 14 1943 The inmates at Sobibor initiate an armed rebellion.
  1. January 1944 The War Refugee Board is established by President Franklin Roosevelt.
  1. March 1944 The German army invades Hungary.
  1. May 15 1944 The Nazis begin deportation of Hungarian Jews. Over 430,000 Jews are sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where most are gassed.
  1. June 6 1944 The Allied Powers invade Normandy.
  1. July 20 1944 German officers fail and are caught in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.
  1. June 23-July 14 1944 Seven thousand one hundred ninety-six Jews are deported from the Lódz ghetto to Chelmno where they are killed.
  1. July 24 1944 The Soviet Army liberates the Majdanek death camp.
  1. October 7 1944 The prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebel and blow up one crematorium.
  1. January 17 1945 Nazis empty Auschwitz and start prisoners on "death marches" to Germany.
  1. January 27 1945 The Soviet army liberates Auschwitz.
  1. April 1945 Troops from the United States liberate survivors from the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
  1. April 30 1945 Adolph Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin rather than be caught by the advancing Soviet army.
  1. May 5 1945 Troops from the United States liberate Mauthausen concentration camp.
  1. May 7 1945 Germany surrenders and war in Europe is ended.
  1. November 1945 The war crimes tribunal is convened at Nuremberg, Germany.