January 24 Roosevelt creates the War Refugee Board, transferring control from Cordell Hull and Breckenridge Long of the State Department to Henry Morgenthau of the Treasury Department. March 19 Germany invades Hungary. 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. May 15 to July 8 Deportation of 438,000 Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz. June Red Cross delegation visits Theresienstadt. June 4 Allies enter Rome. June 6 D-Day, start of the Allied invasion in Normandy. June 14 Rosenberg orders the kidnapping of 40,000 Polish children ages 10-14 for slave labor in the Reich. June 23 Start of the Soviet offensive.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest, Hungary and begins to issue diplomatic papers to save Hungarian Jews. July 20 Soviet troops liberate concentration camp Majdanek. German assassination attempt on Hitler fails. July 25 Ghetto in Kovno, Lithuania, evacuated. August 4 Gestapo arrests Anne Frank's family in Amsterdam. August 6 Deportation to Germany of 27,000 Jews from camps east of the Vistula River in Poland. August 23 Holding camp Drancy (near Paris) liberated. Romania capitulates. September 5 Lodz Ghetto evacuated. September 11 British troops arrive in Holland. September 13 Soviet troops reach the Slovakian border.
Transport of all Jews in Dutch camps to Germany. New deportations from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. Last transport from France to Auschwitz. September 14 American troops reach the German border. September 23 Massacre of Jews in the concentration camp in Kluga, Estonia. Resumption of deportations from Slovakia. October 7 Escape attempts in Auschwitz-Birkenau. October 15 Germany installs new puppet Hungarian government, which resumes deportation of Jews. October 18 Hitler orders the establishment of the Volkssturms (mobilization of all men from 16 to 60). October 23 Allied armies liberate Paris. End October Survivors of concentration camp Plaszow (Krakow) transported to Auschwitz. October 31 Approximately 14,000 Jews transported from Slovakia to Auschwitz. November Trial of the leaders of the extermination camp Majdanek held in Lublin.
Gassings in Auschwitz terminated. 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 destruction of the crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as Nazis try to hide evidence of the death camps. December 17 Members of Waffen SS (an arm of the SS) murder 81 U.S. POWs at Malmedy. Continue: 1945 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 |
