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THE FINAL SOLUTION: 1941-1945

"It is good that we are preceded by an aura of terror for our plans to exterminate Jewry." Adolf Hitler (to Heydrich and Himmler) October 25, 1941.


An SS trooper takes aim at a Jewish mother and child.
CL:We Have Not Forgotten. 1939-1945 (Warsaw. 1961)
In the spring of 1941, the Nazis were poised to invade the western Soviet Union--home for 5 million Jews. The opportunity to carry out the "Final Solution"-- total elimination of European Jewish life and culture --was now within reach. By the summer of that year the decision to kill the Jews was implemented. By 1945, six million Jews were dead through mass executions, starvation, slave labor, and in extermination camps. Political dissidents, members of the resistance, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and homosexuals were also caught in the Nazis' murderous net. Millions of ordinary citizens were conscripted as laborers for the German war effort. The priority target, however, was the Jewish population of Europe. It was targeted for total annihilation. The Wannsee Conference
The plan for the total annihilation of European Jewry was formalized at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on January 20, 1942. The one-day conference was convened to discuss the administrative policies for implementing the "Final Solution."

At the conference, Reinhard Heydrich made it clear that the "Final Solution" would involve shipment and death for all Jews incapable of slave labor. The remainder would be worked to death.

1941-1945 ASHES OF DEATH

             1941

Jan. 21-26   Iron Guard (Rumanian fascist
             organization) butchers hundreds of
             Rumanian Jews
March        Adolf Eichmann appointed head of Gestapo
             department for Jewish affairs
April        Germany occupies Greece and Yugoslavia
June 22      Germany invades the Soviet Union
June-Dec.    Nazi Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing
             squad) conducts mass murder of Jews in
             German-occupied Soviet territory
July 31      Heydrich appointed by Goering to
             implement the "Final Solution"
Sept. 1      German Jews required to wear yellow Star
             of David with the word "Jude"
Sept. 28-29  Massacre of 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar--
             outside Kiev
Oct .        Establishment of Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
             for the extermination of Jews. Gypsies,
             Poles, Russians, and others were also
             murdered at the camp
Dec. 7       Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
Dec. 8       Chelmno extermination camp begins
             operation--340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and
             Czechs killed by April 1943.

Dying man in liberated Bergen-Belsen, 1945. CL:NARA


Jews executed in a Rumanian town, left hanging in the market place, guarded by a German soldier. CL.Yad Vashem 

             1942

Jan. 20      Wannsee Conference in Berlin
             Heydrich outlines official plan to murder
             Europe's Jews
March 17     Extermination begins in Belzec; by end of
             1942, 600,000 Jews murdered
May          Extermination by gas begins in Sobibor
             killing center; by Oct. 1943, 250,000
             Jews murdered
June         Jewish partisan unit established in the
             forests of Belorussia and the Baltic
             States
Summer       Deportation of Jews to killing centers
             from Belgium, Croatia, France, Holland,
             Poland. Armed resistance by Jews in
             ghettos of Kletzk, Kremenets, Lachwa,
             Mir, Tuchin, Weisweiz
Winter       Deportation of Jews from Germany, Greece
             and Norway to killing centers. Jewish
             partisan movement organized in forests
             near Lublin

             1943

Jan.         German 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad
March        Liquidation of Cracow ghetto
April        Warsaw ghetto revolt begins as Germans
             attempt to liquidate 70,000 inhabitants.
             Jewish underground fights Nazis until
             early June
June         Himmler orders the liquidation of all the
             ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union
Summer       Armed resistance by Jews in Czestochowa,
             Lvov, Bedzin, Bialystok and Tarnow
             ghettos
Fall         Liquidation of large ghettos in Minsk,
             Vilna, Riga
Oct. 14      Armed revolt in Sobibor extermination
             camp

             1944

March 19     Germany occupies Hungary
May 15       Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews; by
             June 27 - 380,000 sent to Auschwitz
June 6       Allied invasion at Normandy
Spring/
Summer       Red Army repels Nazi forces
July 20      Group of German officers attempts to
             assassinate Hitler
July 24      Russians liberate Maidanek killing center
Oct. 7       Revolt by inmates at Auschwitz; one
             crematorium blown up

Nov. 8       Beginning of death march of approximately
             40,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria
Nov.         Last Jews deported from Theresienstadt to
             Auschwitz

The liberation of Dachau. C:BPK 
             1945

Jan. 17      Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of
             death march
Jan. 25      Beginning of death march for inmates of
             Stutthof
April 6-10   Death march of inmates of Buchenwald
April 30     Hitler commits suicide
May 8        Germany surrenders: end of third Reich


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