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 becomes head of RuSHA (Race and Settlement Office). February 2 German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad—an event that marks the turning point in the war. February 15 First "resettlements" in Bialystok Ghetto in Poland, with 1,000 Jews killed on the spot and 10,000 deported to Treblinka. February 18 Nazis arrest "White Rose" resistance leaders in Munich. February 27 Deportation of Jewish armament workers from Berlin to Auschwitz.
Transports from Holland to Sobibor and from Prague, Vienna, Luxembourg, and Macedonia to Treblinka. 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. March 15 Deportations from Salonika and Thrace in Greece. March 22 The first new crematorium in Auschwitz-Birkenau begins operation. April 19 Bermuda Conference. Fruitless discussions by U.S. and British delegates on deliverance of Nazi victims.
Revolt and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. June 11 Himmler orders the liquidation of all Polish ghettos. Expanded to Soviet Union by the edict of June 21. June 21-27 Liquidation of the ghetto in Lemberg (Lvov) (20,000 persons). June 25 Revolt and destruction of the ghetto in Czestochowa, Poland. July 1 Thirteenth order of the Reich's Civil Laws: Jews within Germany placed under police justice. July 25-26 Mussolini arrested and Fascist government in Italy falls. Marshal Pietro Badoglio takes over and negotiates with Allies. August 2 Revolts in Treblinka death camp and Krikov labor camp in the Lublin district. August 16-23 Revolt and destruction of the ghetto in Bialystok. September 11 Start of German raids against Jews in Nice, France.
Liquidation of ghettos in Minsk and Lida. September 11-18 Transports of families from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. September 23 Liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto. September 25 Soviet troops recapture Smolensk, Russia. Liquidation of all ghettos in Belorussia. October 2 Germans order expulsion of Danish Jews. Due to rescue operations by the Danish underground, some 7,000 Jews evacuated to Sweden. Germans capture only 475. October 13 Italy declares war on Germany. Due to Allied headquarters' premature announcement of Italian move by Allied headquarters, Italian Jews are trapped before they can be evacuated to North Africa.
Revolt in Sobibor. October 18 First transport of Jews from Rome to Auschwitz. October 20 U.N. War Crimes Commission established. November 3 Liquidation of the Riga Ghetto. Nazis murder remaining Jews in Majdanek (17,000 victims). November 6 Soviet troops recapture Kiev. November 28 Conference in Teheran; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet. December 15-19 First trial of German war criminals in Charkow (Kharkov), Ukraine. Continue: 1944 Photos: Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives. The Director's Story | Timeline of Nazi Abuses Results of Death-Camp Experiments: Should They Be Used? Exposing Flawed Science | Resources Transcript | Site Map | Holocaust on Trial Home Editor's Picks | Previous Sites | Join Us/E-mail | TV/Web Schedule About NOVA | Teachers | Site Map | Shop | Jobs | Search | To print PBS Online | NOVA Online | WGBH © | Updated October 2000 |