Louisa & Natalie's Journey: Timeline
This timeline has been constructed to support, contextualise and enrich your knowledge and understanding of Louisa & Natalie's Journey. As you are following the journey, you may like to look at the timeline to understand what is happening in the Netherlands, Germany and other areas in Europe from 1933-1945.
Some events & dates are linked to further information - click on the event to find out more.
1933
January 30: Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
January 1933: Many Jewish workers are fired from their jobs
March 22: Dachau concentration camp opens
April 1: Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses
April 7: 'Gleichschaltung' begins - laws that bar Jews from having jobs in the civil service, university, and governments/councils are introduced
April 26: Gestapo established
May 10: Public burning of books written by Jews, 'political opponents', and others not approved by the state
1934
August: Hitler declares himself the Fuhrer (Leader) and Chancellor of the Reich
1935
May 31: Jews barred from serving in the German armed forces
September 15: "Nuremberg Laws": anti-Jewish racial laws introduces; Jews are no longer considered German citizens
1936
March 3: Jewish doctors barred from practicing medicine in German institutions
June 17: Himmler is appointed as the Chief of German Police
July: Sachsenhausen concentration camp opens
1937
July: Buchenwald concentration camp opens
1938
April 26: Jews owning property in the Reich had to register it with the authorities
October 5: Germans mark all Jewish passports with a letter "J" to restrict Jews from movement
November 9-10: November Pogrom (sometimes referred to as 'Kristallnacht' or 'Night of Broken Glass': anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland; 200 synagogues destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen).
November 12: Law passed forcing all Jews to transfer shops or retail businesses to Aryan ownership
November 15: All Jewish students permanently excluded from German schools
December 12: One billion Marks fine to be paid by German Jews for the destruction of property during November Pogrom
1939
September 1: Beginning of World War II: Germany invades Poland
September 21: Heydrich gives orders to establish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
October 12: Germany begins deportation of Austrian and Czech Jews to Poland
October 28: First Polish ghetto established in Piotrków
November 23: Jews in German-occupied Poland forced to wear an arm band or yellow star
1940
May 7: Lodz Ghetto (Litzmannstadt) sealed: 165,000 people in 1.6 square miles
May 10: Germany invades the Netherlands
May 14: German aeroplanes bomb Rotterdam
May: German occupation authorities banned Jews in the Netherlands from the civil service and required Dutch Jews to register the assets of their business enterprises
May 20: Concentration camp established at Auschwitz
November 16: Warsaw Ghetto sealed, containing 500,000 people
1941
January 10: German authorities required all Dutch Jews to register themselves as Jews
February 1: Rounding up of Polish Jews by German authorities for transfer to Warsaw Ghetto
February 25: General strike by Dutch workers, following the rounding up, arrest and deportation to Mauthausen and Buchenwald of several young Jews
February: Segregation of all Jews from the general Dutch population & incarceration of 15,000 Jews in to German forced labour camps. 'Foreign' and 'stateless' Jews were sent to Westerbork transit camp
March: Adolf Eichmann appointed head of the department for Jewish Affairs of the Reich Security Main Office
June 22: Germany invades the Soviet Union
July 31: Heydrich appointed by Göring to implement the "Final Solution"
September 1: German Jews required to wear yellow star of David with the word "Jude"
September: Hitler orders the deportation of all Jews still in the 'Greater German Reich'
September 28-29: Massacre of 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar
October: Opening of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) for the purpose of extermination of Jews; Gypsies, Poles, Russians, and others
December 8: Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp begins operations: 340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and Czechs murdered by April 1943
1942
January 20: Wannsee Conference in Berlin: Heydrich outlines plan to murder Europe's Jews
March 17: Extermination begins in Belzec; by end of 1942 600,000 Jews murdered
April 29: Jews in the Netherlands forced to wear a yellow 'Star of David' badge on their clothing
May: Extermination by gas begins in Sobibor extermination camp; by October 1943, 250,000 Jews murdered
June: Jewish partisan units established in the forests of Belorussia and the Baltic States
July 22: Germans establish Treblinka concentration camp
Summer: Deportation of Jews to extermination centres from Belgium, Croatia, France, the Netherlands, and Poland; armed resistance by Jews in ghettos of Kletzk, Kremenets, Lakhva, Mir, Tuchin, and Weisweiz
September: 'Special units' consisting of Dutch collaborators were created to search for Jews in hiding
Winter: Deportation of Jews from Germany, Greece and Norway to extermination centres: Jewish partisan movement organised in forests near Lublin
1943
March: Liquidation of ghetto in Krakow
April 19: Warsaw Ghetto revolt begins as Germans attempt to liquidate 70,000 inhabitants; Jewish underground fights Nazis until early June
May: Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.
June: Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union
Summer: Armed resistance by Jews in Bedzin, Bialystok, Czestochowa, Lvov, and Tarnów ghettos. Most Jews in the Netherlands have been deported by Summer of 1943
Autumn: Liquidation of large ghettos in Minsk, Vilna (Vilnius), and Riga
October 14: Armed revolt in Sobibor extermination camp
1944
June 6: D-Day: Allied invasion at Normandy
July 24: Russians liberate Majdanek extermination camp
September 3: Last train leaves Westerbork transit camp for Auschwitz
October 7: Revolt by inmates at Auschwitz; one crematorium blown up
November: Last transport of Jews deported from Theresienstadt (Terezin) to Auschwitz
1945
January 17: Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of death march
January 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: V-E Day: Germany surrenders; end of Third Reich