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Chronology of Jewish Persecution: 1944

January 22

Hitler is startled when Anglo-American forces land in Anzio. Hitler accuses Abwehr of incompetence and fires Canaris. Hires Colonel Alexander Hansen who is also part of the conspiracy.

January 24

Roosevelt creates the War Refugee Board.

January 27

Siege of Leningrad ends.

March

Captain Breitenbuch volunteers to assassinate Hitler. He does not get his chance due to a change of rules of who is allowed to attend briefings.

March 19

Germany invades Hungary.

March 24

Roosevelt warns Hungary to refrain from anti-Jewish measures.

April 10

Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from Auschwitz and carry detailed information about the death camp to outside world.

April 14

First transport of Jews from Athens to Auschwitz.

April 16

Hungarian government registers Jews, confiscates their property

April 25

"Blood for Trucks" negotiations start.

May 11

Allied forces mount major offensive in central Italy.

May 15 to July 8

Deportation of 438,000 Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz.

June

A Red Cross delegation visits Theresienstadt.

June 4

Allies enter Rome.

June 6

D-Day, the start of the Allied invasion in Normandy.

June 9

Hannah Szenes arrested in Hungary

June 13

Germany launches first V-1 rockets at England.

June 14

Rosenberg orders kidnapping of 40,000 Polish children ages 10-14 for slave labor in the Reich.

June 22

The SS conducts the first documented gassing in the women's camp at Ravensbrück. The gas chamber at Ravensbrück uses Zyklon B, crystalline hydrogen cyanide gas, as the killing agent. The gas chamber is relatively small; the SS uses it primarily to kill those prisoners they deemed "unfit" for work. In all, the SS will kill more than 2,000 prisoners in the gas chamber at Ravensbrück.

June 23

Start of the Soviet offensive.

June 29

Hitler fires Field Marshal Rommel and Field Marshal von Rundstedt for saying that Germany should sue for peace.

July

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest, Hungary and begins to issue diplomatic papers to save Hungarian Jews.

July 7

Hungarian government halts deportations.

July 8

Kovno ghetto liquidated.

Soviet forces annihilate Army Group Center leaving only pocets of German forces to fight the Soviets.

July 10

Soviet forces come within 100 km. of Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenberg.

July 13

Jewish partisans help liberate Vilna: 2,500 of 57,000 Jews survive

July 20

Soviet troops liberate concentration camp Majdanek. German assassination attempt on Hitler fails.

July 22

Lvov liberated: 110,000 Jews dead.

July 23

Red Cross mission visits Theresienstadt. Soviets liberate Majdanek.

July 25

Ghetto in Kovno, Lithuania, evacuated.

August 4

Anne Frank’s family is arrested by the Gestapo in Amsterdam.

August 6

Deportation to Germany of 27,000 Jews from camps east of the Vistula River.

August 7

Liquidation of Lodz ghetto begins: 74,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz.

August 8-14

Scores of conspirators are tried and executed in Plotzensee prison.

August 23

Holding camp Drancy (Paris) liberated. Rumania capitulates.

August 25

Paris liberated.

August 28

Slovak national uprising begins.

September 4

Antwerp liberated: Fewer than 5,000 Jews survived.

September 5

Lodz Ghetto evacuated.

September 10

Soviet forces capture Prague.

September 11

British troops arrive in Holland.

September

Transport of all Jews in Dutch camps into Germany. New deportations from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. Last transport from France to Auschwitz.

September 14

American troops on the German border.

September 23

Massacre of Jews in the concentration camp in Kluga, Estonia. Resumption of deportations from Slovakia.

September 28

Churchill announces formation of Jewish brigade.

September/October

Many German conspirators tried and executed.

October 3

Polish uprising in Warsaw crushed.

October 7

Escape attempts in Auschwitz?Birkenau.

October 15

Germany installs new puppet Hungarian government, which resumes deporting Jews.

October 18

Hitler orders the establishment of the “Volkssturms” (mobilization of all men from 16 to 60).

October 23

Paris is liberated by Allied armies.

October 23-26

Battle of Leyte.

End October

The survivors of concentration camp Plaszow (Krakow) transported to Auschwitz.

October 31

Approximately 14,000 Jews transported from Slovakia to Auschwitz.

November 2

Gassings in Auschwitz terminated.

November

Trial of the leaders of the extermination camp Majdanek held in Lublin.

November 3/8

Soviet troops near Budapest.

November 18

Eichmann deports 38,000 Jews from Budapest to the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Ravensbruck and other camps.

November 26

Himmler orders the destruction of the crematorium at Auschwitz?Birkenau as Nazis try to hide evidence of the death camps.

December 16

"Battle of the Bulge."

December 17

Waffen SS murder 81 U.S. POWs at Malmedy.


Sources: Holocaust Memorial Center
Zekelman Family Campus
28123 Orchard Lake Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-3738
(248) 553-2400
(248) 553-2433 FAX
(248) 553-2834 Library
[email protected]

Yad Vashem
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Joric Center