Holocaust Chronology 1943

January 18

First armed resistance against deportation in Warsaw Ghetto.

January 20/26

Transports from the ghetto in Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.

January 29

Germans order all Gypsies arrested and sent to concentration camps.

January 30

Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds Heydrich as head of RSHA.

January 31

Field Marshal Paulus surrenders the 6th Army at Stalingrad. 300,000 German troops are killed, wounded or captured.

February 2

German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad. (This marks the turning point in the war).

February 5

Deportation of 10,000 Jews from Bialystok to Treblinka begins.

February 15

First “resettlements” in Bialystok ghetto in Poland; 1,000 Jews killed on the spot, 10,000 deported to Treblinka.

February 18

Nazis arrest "White Rose" leaders in Munich.

February 25

Fist transports from Salonika to Auschwitz

February 26

First transport of Gypsies reaches Auschwitz

February 27

Deportation of Jewish armament workers from Berlin to Auschwitz.

March

Transports from Holland to Sobibor; from Prague, Vienna, Luxembourg, and Macedonia to Treblinka.

March/May

Second “resettlement” in Croatia.

March 1

American Jews hold a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York to pressure the United States to aid European Jewry.

March 13

Disbandment of the ghetto in Krakow.

An assasination attempted on Hitler. Fabian von Schlabrendorff smuggles a bomb aboard Hitler's plane, the bomb fails to explode.

March 15

Deportations from Salonika, Greece and Thrace.

March 20

Colonel Gersdorff attemptes to assasinate Hitler.

March 22

The first new crematorium in Auschwitz? Birkenau placed into operation.

April 18

Stroop arrrives in the Warsaw Ghetto.

April 19

Bermuda Conference. Fruitless discussions by U.S. and British delegates on deliverance of Nazi victims.

April 19

Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins. Von Sammers is relieved of command of the Nazi garrison.

April 22

Stroop orders the Warsaw Ghetto to be set on fire.

April 23

The Nazis execute the Judenrat chairman, Marek Lichtenbojm, and his deputies in the Warsaw Ghetto.

May 7

Nazi Government Reaffirms Commitment To Solve the “Jewish Question.”

May 8

The headquarters bunker of the Jewish resistance fighters at Mila 18 in the Warsaw Ghetto is liquidated.

May 16

Stroop announces “The Warsaw Ghetto is free of Jews” and the synagogue on Tlomackie Street is set on fire.

May 24

19,153 Jews expelled from Sofia and saved from deportation

June 11

Himmler orders the liquidation of all Polish ghettos. By the edict of June 21 expanded to the Soviet Union.

June 21/27

Liquidation of the ghetto in Lemberg (Lvov) (20,000 persons).

June 25

Revolt and destruction of the ghetto in Czestochowa, Poland.

June 28

Four crematoria completed at Aushwitz-Birkenau.

July 1

Thirteenth order of the Reich's Civil Laws: Jews within Germany placed under police justice.

July 5

German offensive at Kursk fails.

July 10

Allies invade Sicily.

July 25/26

Mussolini arrested and Fascist government in Italy falls; Marshal Pietro Badoglio takes over and negotiates with Allies.

August 2

Revolt in Treblinka death camp, revolt at Krikov labor camp, Lublin district.

August 8

First of five organized groups leaves Vilna ghetto to join partisans.

August 14

Rome is declared an open city.

August 16/23

Revolt and destruction of the ghetto in Bialystok.

August 18

Prisoners of Sonderkommando 1005 made to exhume tens of thousands of bodies at Babi Yar.

September 1

Vilna underground uprising fails.

September 3

Belgian Jews arrested for deportation to Auschwitz.

September 11

Start of German raids against Jews in Nice, France.

September 11/14

Liquidation of ghettos in Minsk and Lida.

September 15

Kovno ghetto converted into a concentration camp.

September 11/18

Transports of families from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.

September 23

Liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto.

September 25

Smolensk recaptured by Soviet troops. Liquidation of all ghettos in Belorussia.

October 2

Order for the expulsion of Danish Jews; due to the rescue operations by the Danish underground, some 7,000 Jews were evacuated to Sweden. Only 475 were captured by the Germans.

October 13

Italy declares war on Germany.

October 14

Revolt in Sobibor.

October 18

First transport of Jews from Rome to Auschwitz.

October 20

U.N. War Crimes Commission is established.

October 21

Liquidation of Minsk ghetto.

October 25

Dnepropetrovsk liberated: 15 of 80,000 Jews remain.

November 3

Implementation of Operation Harvest Festival, which was to liquidate several camps in the Lublin area (including Majdanek, Trawniki and Poniatowa). Liquidation of the Riga Ghetto. Murder of remaining Jews in Majdanek (17,000 victims).

November 6

Kiev recaptured by Soviet troops.

November 17

Jewish partisans liberate Jews of Borshchev.

November 28

Conference in Teheran; meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

December 15/19

First trial of German war criminals in Charkow (Kharkov), Ukraine.

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
The Joric Center
Dor, Danny, Ed. Brave and Desperate. Israel: Ghetto Fighters' House Museum, 2003.