Chronology of Jewish History - Part 4

1937 - 1939

Chronology of Jewish History - Parts 1-9

Chronology of Jews in Denmark

20th Century

1930’s

1937
In Poland anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas (Numerus clausus) are introduced in some universities, halves the number of Jews in universities between independence (1918) and the late 1930s. The restrictions are so inclusive that – while the Jews make up 20.4% of the student body in 1928 – by 1937 their share is down to only 7.5%, out of the total population of 9.75% Jews in the country according to the 1931 census. Catholic trade unions of Polish doctors and lawyers restrict their new members to Christian Poles. In January 1937 Foreign Minister Józef Beck declares that Poland could house 500,000 Jews and hopes that over the next 30 years 80,000-100,000 Jews a year would leave Poland. Beck declares in the League of Nations his support for the creation of a Jewish state and for an international conference to enable Jewish emigration. The common goals of the Polish state and of the Zionist movement, of increased Jewish population flow to Palestine, results in overt and covert cooperation. Poland helps by organizing passports and facilitating illegal immigration. [Wikipedia]

1937
At the annual Nuremberg meeting of the Nazi Party, Hitler declares the Reich will last a thousand years.

1937
Beginning of the Nazis' policy of seizure of Jewish property through the policy of "Aryanization". Before Hitler came to power, Jews owned 100,000 businesses in Germany. By 1938, boycotts, intimidation, forced sales, and restrictions on professions had largely forced Jews out of economic life. According to Yad Vashem, "Of the 50,000 Jewish-owned stores that existed in 1933, only 9,000 remained in 1938." Between $230 and $320 billion (in 2005 [US] dollars) was stolen from Jews across Europe, with hundreds of thousands of businesses Aryanized. [Wikipedia]

1937
"The Eternal Jew" was the title of an exhibition of degenerate art (entartete Kunst) displayed at the Library of the German Museum in Munich from 8 November 1937 to 31 January 1938. The exhibition attracted 412,300 visitors, over 5,000 per day.

1937
The right-wing, antisemitic Hungarian fascist party, called the Arrow Cross, is formed.

1937
Adolph Eichmann visits Palestine to explore possible Jewish immigration from Germany.

1937
The chief rabbi of Milan, an old friend of the Pope from when he was the cardinal of Milan, meets with Pope Pius XI. The rabbi asks the Pope to intervene on behalf of persecuted German Jews.

1937
Paul Baerwald becomes head of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

January 1, 1937
The Archbishop of Canterbury attacks antisemitism.

January 6, 1937
Roosevelt renews US Neutrality Act. It specifically forbids the shipment of arms for use in the Civil War in Spain.

January 20, 1937
Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as US President.

January 21, 1937
The Nansen Assistance Organization is established in Oslo, Norway. Its goal is to aid refugees and victims of Nazism to protect the rights of stateless people.

February 27, 1937
In Germany the Kripo (criminal police) begins the first mass roundup of political opponents of Nazi Party.

March 14, 1937
In Germany, Catholic nuns and priests are arrested, and Catholic schools, convents and monasteries are closed, due to their anti-Nazi activities.

Pope Pius XI issues a Papal encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge [With Burning Anxiety]. Although it does not mention Hitler or Nazism, it comes out strongly against racism, extreme nationalism, and totalitarianism. The encyclical is smuggled into Germany and read on Palm Sunday in all Catholic churches.

May 28, 1937
Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Spring 1937
Dr. Feng Shan Ho posted as First Secretary to Chinese Legation in Vienna.

Jun 11, 1937
Jews are forbidden to give testimony in German courts.

July 7, 1937
Japan invades northeast China. Japan practices genocidal policies against the Chinese population. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese will be brutally murdered.

July 15, 1937
Buchenwald concentration camp opens near Weimar, Germany. Tens of thousands of prisoners will be murdered there. Ten thousand Jews will be taken to Buchenwald after Kristallnacht.

July 19, 1937
Nazis sponsor a major exhibition called “Degenerate Art” (Entartete Kunst) in Munich. It denigrates modern art and works by Jewish artists.

August 28, 1937
Japanese forces occupy Beijing [Peking] and Tianjin, China.

September 7, 1937
Hitler declares the Treaty of Versailles invalid.

A World Conference of the Society of Friends (Quakers) condemns Nazi antisemitism.

November 5, 1937
The Hossback Protokol is written. These are the minutes from the meeting where Hitler outlines his war aims against Austria and Czechoslovakia.

November 6, 1937
Italy joins German-Japanese Anti-Comminturn Pact.

November 8, 1937
Nazi-sponsored antisemitic exhibit called “The Eternal Jew” opens in Munich.

November 9, 1937
Japanese military forces capture and occupy Shanghai, China. Shanghai eventually becomes a major safe haven for 18,000 Jewish refugees from Europe.

November 25, 1937
Germany and Japan sign a military and political treaty.

December 5-13, 1937
Japanese troops conquer Nanjing [Nanking], China. 250,000 Chinese are killed by the Japanese army. It is called the Rape of Nanjing.

December 11, 1937
Italy resigns from the League of Nations.

December 11, 1937
Second Sino-Japanese War: start of the Rape of Nanking following Japanese victory in the Battle of Nanking. An estimated 40,000 to over 300,000 Chinese are murdered. Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the massacre. China's official estimate is "more than 300,000" dead.

December 14, 1937
SS chief Himmler issues a decree that the German Criminal Police (Kripo) do not have to have evidence of a specific criminal act to detain persons indefinitely.

1938
By late 1938 approximately 3,310,000 Jews live in Poland. The average rate of permanent settlement is about 30,000 per annum. At the same time, every year around 100,000 Jews are passing through Poland in unofficial emigration overseas. Between the end of the Polish–Soviet War and late 1938, the Jewish population of the Republic had grown by over 464,000. [Wikipedia]

1938
Japanese and German aggression cause Roosevelt and the US to review its position on neutrality and isolation.

1938
Between 1938 and 1939, 17,000 Jews illegally enter Palestine. Most of them are from Central Europe.

1938
Between 1938 and 1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) helps rescue 30,000 European Jews. Most of them are brought to the port cities of Lisbon and Milan.

1938
The National Refugee Service is created in the United States to help refugees immigrate to the United States.

1938
The Jewish community initiates a worldwide boycott of German products and services to protest the treatment of German and Austrian Jews.

1938
US Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd protests the treatment of Jews and in particular the confiscation of Jewish property in Germany. Dodd sends numerous reports regarding this to the State Department. He recommends formal protests.

1938
The Union des Sociétés Juives (USJ) is founded in France.

1938
The Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG; the Federation of Jewish Communities in Switzerland), headed by Saly Mayer, takes care of refugees coming from Germany and Austria. Mayer negotiates with Swiss immigration officials to liberalize immigration laws and procedures.

1938
US Congressman Charles A. Buckley writes FDR with a plan to resettle European Jews in the territory of Alaska. His proposal is rejected.

1938
By late 1938, more than 25% of Germany’s 525,000 Jews (150,000) have emigrated.

1938
Between April and December 1938, 30% of Austrian Jews (50,000 individuals) escape.

1938
In 1938, there are 57,000 Italian Jews out of a total Italian population of 45,600,000. As a result of continuing anti-Semitic policy, 5,000 Italian Jews emigrate and more than 4,000 convert to Christianity. After emigration and conversion, the Jewish population of Italy is reduced to 35,156.

1938
Arab rioters rush into the Jewish Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood, killing 19 Jews, 11 of whom were children in the 1938 Tiberias massacre.

1938
Father Charles E. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, starts antisemitic weekly radio broadcasts in the United States.

1938
Bernhard Kahn, head of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Europe, retires. To European Jews, he is known as “Mr. Joint.”

1938
Swiss Minister Maximilian Jaeger is sent to Budapest, Hungary.

January 1938
Swedish government institutes strict immigration standards.

January 1938
Dachau concentration camp is expanded.

January 1, 1938
Sweden passes a law severely limiting immigration.

January 21, 1938
Romania revokes laws protecting its Jewish citizens. Some Romanian Jews lose their citizenship.

February 1938
Hitler removes key generals from the German Wehrmacht (Army). These generals opposed Hitler’s war aims.

Joachim von Ribbentrop becomes German foreign minister.

February 4, 1938
Hitler declares himself Commander of the Wehrmacht. He appoints General Wilhelm Keitel as Chief of Staff. Joachim von Ribbentrop is appointed German Foreign Minister.

February 11, 1938
Hitler invites Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden. Hitler demands that the Austrian Nazi party be incorporated into the Austrian government. He demands that Artur von Seyss-Inquart be made Austrian Minister of the Interior. Schuschnigg understands that this ultimatum will inevitably lead to the end of Austrian independence.

February 16, 1938
Under pressure, Schuschnigg appoints Seyss-Inquart as Minister of Security. Schuschnigg declares a general amnesty for all Austrian Nazi party members, including those who were responsible for the murder of Dollfuss.

February 20, 1938
British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden resigns in protest of British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

February 21-22, 1938
Winston Churchill leads a vote of censure against Chamberlain and his appeasement policy.

March 9, 1938
Schuschnigg calls for a popular vote on Austrian independence. Hitler demands that the vote be postponed and demands Schuschnigg’s resignation.

March 12, 1938
German troops cross into Austria.

March 13, 1938
Anschluss (annexation of Austria). Austria becomes a province of the German Greater Reich and is renamed Austmark. Vienna loses its status as a capital and becomes a provincial administrative seat. All antisemitic decrees imposed on German Jews are immediately applied in Austria. Nearly 200,000 more Jews come under Hitler’s control.

As a result, the Roosevelt administration combines both the German and Austrian immigration quotas together.

The Israelitische Kulturgemeinde (IKG; Israeli Cultural Society) in Vienna is the main organization representing the Jewish community, both in the city and provinces. Dr. Joseph Löwenherz becomes head of the IKG.

March 14, 1938
Cheering crowds greet Hitler as he parades triumphantly through Vienna.

March 18, 1938
SS Chief Heinrich Himmler given power to operate in Austria. The offices of Vienna’s Jewish community and Zionist organizations are closed, and their leaders jailed. All Jewish organizations and congregations are forbidden. One hundred ten prominent Jewish leaders are arrested and deported to Dachau. Jews are banned from any public activity.

March 23, 1938
Nazi occupying forces in Austria withdraw legal recognition and tax-exempt status from Jewish organizations.

March 24, 1938
Nazi concentration camp Flossenbürg is opened in Flossenbürg, Bavaria, ten miles from the border of Czechoslovakia. 89,964 to 100,000 prisoners passed through Flossenbürg and its subcamps. Around 30,000 died from malnutrition, overwork, executions, or during the death marches.

April 1938
The Nazi government in Austria prepares a list of wealthy Jews in preparation for large scale confiscation of Jewish property and assets.

April 1, 1938
Borders of several western and central Voivodeships (provinces) of the Second Polish Republic are changed. This included the Voivodeships of Pomerania, Poznan, Warsaw, Lodz, Bialystok, Lublin, and Kielce. Pomerania gained most, while Bialystok lost most. [Wikipedia]

April 5, 1938
New anti-Jewish riots break out in Poland.

April 10, 1938
99.73% of Austrians vote in favor of annexation to Germany.

April 14, 1938
Rescue and relief groups meet at the White House “to undertake a preliminary consideration of the most effective manner in which private individuals and organizations within the United States can cooperate with the government in the work to be undertaken by the International Committee which will be created to facilitate the immigration of political refugees from Austria and Germany.” It becomes the Presidential Advisory Committee on Political Refugees (PACPR).

April 26, 1938
An order calling for registration of all Jewish property is enacted in Nazi Germany. This is a first step toward confiscation.

May 1938
The German Nuremberg Laws, which forcibly segregate Jews in Germany and deprive them of citizenship and the means of livelihood, are officially enforced in Austria. More than 200,000 Austrian Jews would be persecuted under these laws, according to German records.

Decree authorizing local authorities to bar Jews from the streets on certain days
Decree empowering the justice Ministry to void wills offending the "sound judgment of the people"
Decree providing for the compulsory sale of Jewish real estate
Decree providing for the liquidation of Jewish real estate agencies, brokerage agencies, and marriage agencies catering to non-Jews
Directive providing for the concentration of Jews in houses

2,000 Jewish leaders in Austria are arrested from a pre-prepared list and are sent to Dachau in four transports.

To force emigration, the families of Jews arrested and deported to concentration camps are told that proof of immediate emigration would secure their release. German Property Transfer Office actively confiscates Jewish property, businesses and bank accounts.

The methods used in Austria combining economic expropriation and expulsion of Jews become the model in future Nazi-conquered territories.

Vienna becomes the center of emigration. All foreign consulates are besieged by Jewish refugees desperate for visas. Most refuse to help.

May 1938
Dr. Ho is appointed Chinese Consul General in Vienna, reporting to the Chinese Embassy in Berlin. Ho issues end destination Shanghai visas to Austrian Jews who are being forced to emigrate. Visas are issued on his own authority, without permission from his government, enabling thousands of Austrian Jews to escape. Ho is ordered to desist by the Chinese Ambassador in Berlin, but ignores the order.

May 16, 1938
PACPR meets at the State Department and appoints James G. McDonald as Chairman and Samuel Cavert as its Secretary.

May 29, 1938
Anti-Jewish laws are enacted in Hungary.

June 9, 1938
The “June Action” (Juniaktion). Hitler orders the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Munich, followed by the destruction of the Nuremberg and Dortmund synagogues on June 15.

June 13-18, 1938
In Germany the first mass arrests of Jews begin through Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich. "Reich compulsory labor prisoners". They are deported to concentration camps.

June 15, 1938
Fifteen hundred Jews are arrested and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany.

June 22, 1938
Pope Pius XI orders the drafting of an important encyclical letter denouncing racism and anti-Semitism, entitled Humani Generis Unitas [The Unity of the Human Race]. It denounces racism and specifically mentions the persecution of Jews. It is more than 100 pages long. Due to the death of Pius XI, it is never published.

July 14, 1938
Major anti-Semitic “Manifesto of Race”, publication in Italy declares the existence of a "pure Italian race of Aryan stock," in which Jews had never belonged. It soon leads to stripping the Jews of Italian citizenship and governmental and professional positions.

July 6-15, 1938
Representatives from 34 countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee policies. All of the countries refuse to help or let in more Jewish refugees (with the exception of Dominican Republic). Many Jews find temporary refuge in Poland.

Australia’s response to accepting Jewish refugees states: “As we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.” The lack of support for Jewish refugees signals to Hitler that the world is unconcerned with Jewish refugees.

The US State Department declares, “No country would be expected to make any changes in its immigration legislation.”

As an outcome of the Evian Conference, an Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees is established to help refugees. It is headed by Lord Winterton and George Rublee. It is, however, highly ineffectual and fails to help Jews who are leaving Germany to take their assets with them.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee attends the Evian Conference and is disappointed with the outcome.

Dr. Heinrich Neumann, a Viennese Jew, is released from a concentration camp and sent to the Evian Conference with a secret proposal by the Nazis. The proposal states that the Nazis will allow Jews to leave Austria and Germany for $250 each or $1,000 per family. The delegates were indifferent to this proposal.

Ira Hirschmann, an American Jew acting as a private citizen, attends the Evian conference and witnesses its futility. He travels to Vienna and underwrites many dozens of affidavits for Jewish refugees. After returning to the United States, he becomes Chairman of the Board of the University in Exile.

Dr. Heinrich Rothmund, former Chief of the Swiss Federal Police, objects to Jewish refugees coming to Switzerland: “Switzerland, which has as little use for these Jews as has Germany, will herself take measures to protect Switzerland from being swamped by the Jews with the connivance of the Viennese police.”

August 8, 1938
The first concentration camp in Austria, Mauthausen-Gusen, opens near Linz. Between 1938 and 1945, 200,000 persons will be imprisoned there and more than 120,000 will be murdered.

August 13, 1938
On his own authority, Kauko Supanen, Vice Consul for Finland in Vienna, Austria, grants provisional visas to Jewish applicants. Fifty Jews bearing his visa arrive in Helsinki on this day. Soon, the Finnish Foreign Ministry rebukes the Consul and orders him not to issue visas to Jews.

August 17, 1938
A Nazi decree forces Jews who do not have names that are recognized as Jewish to add the names “Israel” for males and “Sarah” for females as middle names.

August 20, 1938
Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung [Central Office of Jewish Emigration] is established by SS officer Adolph Eichmann in Austria. This office is to force Jews to emigrate by expropriating their assets and removing all of their civil rights. This model system is soon adopted in Germany and Czechoslovakia.

August - December 1938
Swiss Police captain Paul Grüninger, in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, allows 3,600 Austrian Jewish refugees entry into Switzerland, against the policy of the Swiss government. Many of these refugees had Chinese visas issued by Ho and other diplomats. Recha Sternbuch an orthodox woman, with children, and pregnant spends nights in the forested region by the Austrian border smuggling Jewish refugees while trying to evade Swiss border guards who had orders to turn back anyone over sixteen and under sixty. She worked with a Grüninger, who helped her smuggle over 800 refugees into Switzerland. After a leader in Switzerland informed on them, she was arrested and jailed, and she lost her child. Grüninger lost his job and pension for his help to Jews and was later aided by the Sternbuchs.

Swiss diplomat Ernst Prodolliet, stationed in Bregenz, Austria, works with Grüninger. On his own authority, Prodolliet issues visas and accompanies Jews to the Swiss border.

September 1938
First anti-Semitic laws are passed in Italy. Forbids Jews from teaching in colleges. Orders the deportation of all Jewish aliens residing in Italy who had immigrated after 1919. A department for demography and race is established in the Italian government. This agency establishes a racial policy against Jews in government and civil life.

September 1938
Concentration camp Neuengamme is established near Hamburg, Germany. More than 10,000 prisoners are sent there. 50,000 will perish.

September 1938
Berlin Putsch fails. This is a plan by the German general staff to arrest Hitler and have him committed to a mental institution.

September 1-3, 1938
The Italian government enacts a law that foreign Jews can no longer reside in Italy. Jews who have been naturalized after January 1, 1919, lose their citizenship and are treated as foreigners.

September 7, 1938
Pope Pius XI condemns Catholic participation in anti-Semitic activities. He declares, “Christians are the spiritual descendants of the patriarch Abraham; we are all spiritual Semites.”

September 15 and September 22, 1938
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meets with Hitler in Germany to discuss the Sudetenland crisis. Hitler demands Czechoslovakia return Sudeten territories to Germany. Hitler states that this will be his last territorial demand in Europe. Chamberlain has agreed to Hitler’s demands to annex the Sudetenland. Chamberlain signs Friendship Treaty with Germany. Chamberlain returns to England bearing an agreement he signed with Hitler and states that there would be “peace in our time.”

September 26, 1938
France partially mobilizes its army in the wake of the Sudeten Czechoslovakia crisis.

September 27, 1938
The League of Nations declares Japan the aggressor in China.

September 27, 1938
The Nazi German government completely prohibits Jews from practicing law.

September 27, 1938
U.S. President Roosevelt sends a letter to Adolf Hitler seeking peace.

September 29-30, 1938
The Munich Conference is held. It is attended by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French President Daladier, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini, and Hitler. Great Britain, France and Italy agree to allow the Nazis to annex the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia despite the existence of the 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic. Czechoslovakia is not allowed to participate in the conference. It is also known as the Munich Betrayal. Most of Europe celebrates the Munich agreement, which is presented as a way to prevent a major war. Hitler announces it is his last territorial claim in Europe.

Poland seeks great power status but is not invited to participate in the Munich conference. Minister Beck, disappointed with the lack of recognition, issues an ultimatum on the day of the Munich Agreement to the government of Czechoslovakia, demanding an immediate return to Poland of the contested Zaolzie border region. The Czechoslovak government complies, and Polish military units take over the area. The move is negatively received in both the West and the Soviet Union, and it contributes to the worsening of the geopolitical situation of Poland. [Wikipedia]

The General Assembly of the League of Nations merges the Nansen Office for Refugees with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.

September 30, 1938
The Nazi German government completely prohibits Jewish doctors from practicing medicine.

October 1938
The Polish Consul in Lipsk, Germany, whose name is Feliks Chiczewski, prevents Polish Jews from being expelled from Germany by allowing them to seek refuge in the Polish consulate building and garden.

The Nazis expel 18,000 Jews of Polish ancestry living in Germany. Five thousand of these are sent to a Polish border village named Zbaszyn. The Jewish Joint helps these refugees.

October 2, 1938
In response to its censure, Japan withdraws from the League of Nations.

October 4, 1938
On the eve of the Jewish High Holiday, a pogrom is enacted against the Viennese Jewish community. Many Jews are thrown out of their apartments and homes.

October 5, 1938
Following request by Swiss and Swedish authorities, Germans mark all Jewish passports with a large letter “J” to restrict Jews from crossing the border into Switzerland.

October 6, 1938
The Czech Sudetenland is annexed and occupied by the German Army. Soon, 200,000 Czechs are expelled or flee the territory. Czech President Eduard Benes resigns as a result of the annexation.

October 6, 1938
Italy’s Grand Fascist Council passes antisemitic laws. Jews are to be excluded from public professions.

October 6, 1938
Polish Ministry of the Interior issues edict requiring Polish citizens to have their passports revalidated by October 29, 1938, or they cannot return to Poland. This affects many Polish Jewish refugees.

October 7, 1938
Supreme Council of the Italian Fascist Party establishes policy and principles for anti-Semitic legislation.

October 28-29, 1938
61,000 Polish Jews are expelled from Germany to the Polish town of Zbasyn, on the German border.

October 29, 1938
Nazis make a list of Jews who did not comply with the regulation to have their passports marked with a “J.”

November 1938
Pio Perucchi and Candido Porta, Swiss Consular Officers in Milan, Italy, issue more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria to Italy after the Anschluss. Many refugees enter Switzerland. Perucchi and Porta are demoted and transferred for their illegal and unauthorized activities.

November 1938
William Pearl begins an illegal operation to transport Jews out of Germany and Austria. It is called Aliah AF-AL-PI.

November 1938
Chinese Consul in Milan, Italy, issues visas for Jews to leave Italy for China.

November 2, 1938
The First Vienna Award. It separates largely Hungarian inhabited territories in southern Slovakia and southern Subcarpathian Rus' from Czechoslovakia while Poland annexes territories from Czechoslovakia in the North.

November 7, 1938
Jewish Polish German, communist, Herschel Grynszpan murders moderate German consular aide Ernst vom Rath in Paris. It provides a pretext for the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews.

November 9-10, 1938
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Thousands of Jews are beaten, hundreds killed; 200 synagogues set fire and destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 171 Jewish homes destroyed; 30,000 German, Austrian and Sudeten Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen), 15,000 from Austria. 680 men and women commit suicide in Austria.

80,000 Jews are allowed to emigrate to England. The Central British Fund, a relief agency, is very helpful.

The US consuls in Berlin send an extensive report about the Kristallnacht pogrom. They recommend diplomatic action be taken against Germany.

President Roosevelt temporarily withdraws the US Ambassador from Germany.

Eventually, many Jews are released from the Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps with proof of emigration, diplomatic exit visas and promises to leave Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Many diplomats work to help Jews gain release from the German and Austrian camps. Among the more notable diplomats are: Alexander Kirk and Raymond Geist of the US consulate in Berlin; Gilberto Bosques of the Mexican legation in Vichy; Dr. Feng Shan Ho of the Chinese consulate in Vienna; Frank Foley of the British legation in Berlin; and R.T. Smallbones of the British consulate in Frankfurt.

The American Friends’ Service Committee (AFSC), founded by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, establishes a refugee division in New York City. Its purpose is to help German and Austrian Jewish refugees. The AFSC works closely with the Jewish relief agencies, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the Hebrew Immigration Aid and Sheltering Society (HIAS). It will also work with the Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants (children’s rescue mission) in the rescue of Jews and Jewish children in Paris, Marseilles, Lisbon and Madrid.

November 11, 1938
The Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Representative Council of Jews in Germany) is closed down by the SS.

Werner Otto von Hentig, head of the Oriental Department of the German Foreign Ministry, tries to intervene on behalf of the Jewish community to prevent further actions against Jews. He intercedes with Ernst von Weizsäcker, Undersecretary of State of the German Foreign Ministry. Hentig obtains the release of Jews from concentration camps. Von Hentig submits a report to Hitler and the German Foreign Ministry advocating the creation of a Jewish state.

November 12, 1938
Jews are banned from buying and selling goods under Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life. The decree forces all Austrian and German Jews to transfer retail businesses to the government or to Aryan ownership.

German Jews are fined one billion Reichsmarks ($400 million) for damages inflicted on them during Kristallnacht.

November 14, 1938
Assistant Secretary of State George Messersmith suggests to Secretary of State Hull that the US recall Hugh Wilson, Ambassador to Germany, as a response to “this wholesale inhumanity.”

November 15, 1938
Roosevelt orders labor department to extend visitors’ visas to the US by six months.

November 15, 1938
Jewish students are expelled from all German public schools.

November 17, 1938
The British ambassador to the United States in Washington meets with the Undersecretary of State, Sumner Wells, and offers to allow 32,500 German Jews to come to Great Britain. Wells refuses the offer.

November 17, 1938
Anti-Semitic legislation in Italy is implemented. It forbids Jewish/non-Jewish marriages, excludes Jews from serving in the armed forces, government or municipal services. Jews are defined as having one Jewish parent. Other restrictions include not allowing Jews to own radios, visit resort areas or publish newspapers. Jewish businessmen are forbidden to have Aryan business partners.

November 18, 1938
In response to the Kristallnacht persecution of Jews, Roosevelt recalls the US Ambassador to Germany, High Wilson, back to Washington “for consultation.”

President Roosevelt announces visitors’ visas for approximately 15,000 refugees will be extended. This is in response to the Kristallnacht pogroms.

November 21, 1938
British House of Commons strongly objects to the persecution of Jews in Germany.

December 1938
The Mossad for Aliyah Bet [Committee for Illegal Immigration] is established to smuggle Jews out of Europe and illegally into Palestine. This organization was made up of Palestinian Jews. They are successful in helping tens of thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust.

Mossad agents Moshe Auerbach, in Vienna, and Pino Ginsberg, in Berlin, organize the escape of thousands of Jews. Moshe Auerbach gets 20,000 transit visas from an engineer named Karthaus to allow Jews to escape through Yugoslavia. Karthaus also obtains Mexican visas from Consul General Gilberto Bosques. Ginsberg is able to save hundreds of Jewish boys and girls from concentration camps with a certificate, signed by him, stating that they would leave Germany.

December 1938
Every German, Austrian and Czech Jew must carry an identification card.

The Australian government announces it will admit 15,000 Jewish refugees to the country during the next three years.

December 1938
American consul general in Berlin, Raymond Hermann Geist, warns the Assistant Secretary of State that the US should take measures to rescue Jews who will be condemned to death by the Nazis.

December 1938
The United States Committee for the Care of European Children (USC), led by Clarence Pickett, of the American Friends’ Service Committee (Quakers), organizes a drive to save the Jewish children in Europe.

December 6, 1938
France and Germany sign nonaggression pact.

December 6, 1938
In a special conference, Japanese ministers decide Jews residing in Japanese controlled territories would not be discriminated against or molested; they could freely emigrate to these territories if they wished. This decision officially protects Jews in the Japanese occupied zone in Shanghai.

December 16, 1938
US Commissioner of the Philippines Paul V. McNutt submits proposal to FDR to resettle between 2,000 and 5,000 European refugees in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

December 24, 1938
American Catholic and Protestant leaders sign a Christmas Resolution expressing “horror and shame” regarding the Kristallnacht persecutions of Jews.

Late 1938
US Vice Consul Stephen B. Vaughan stationed in Breslau, Germany, issues more than 700 visas to German Jews who escape to the Philippines for the duration of the war. Philippine President Emanuel Quezon agrees to grant Jews asylum in the Philippine commonwealth.

Late 1938
Pio Perucchi and Candido Porta, Swiss Consular Officers in Milan, Italy, issue more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria to Italy after the Anschluss. Some of these Jewish refugees had left Austria with a Chinese visa. The refugees then enter Switzerland. Perucchi and Porta are demoted and transferred for their illegal and unauthorized activities.

Late 1938
Chinese Consul in Milan, Italy, issues visas for Jews to leave Italy for China.

Late 1938
18,000 German, Austrian and Polish Jews flood into Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China. Paul Komor, a former Hungarian Jew, forms relief agency, the International Committee for Granting Relief to European Refugees (IC); helps immigrants with food, housing, clothing, and funds. He issues passports that allow many Shanghai refugees to escape China.

Late 1938
Polish Consul General Alexander Lados and Polish diplomat Dr. Julius Kuhl, stationed in Bern, Switzerland, issue Polish visas to Jewish refugees in Austria persecuted after the Nazi Anschluss.

1939
In early 1939 Hitler proposes an alliance with Poland on German terms, with an expectation of compliance. The Polish government would have to agree to Danzig's incorporation by the Reich and to an extraterritorial highway passage connecting East Prussia with the rest of Germany through the so-called Polish Corridor (an area linking the Polish mainland with the Baltic Sea). Poland would then join an anti-Soviet alliance and coordinate its foreign policy with Germany, thus becoming a client state. The Polish government is alarmed, and a British guarantee of Poland's independence is issued on March 31,1939. Reacting to this act and to Poland's effective rejection of the German demands, Hitler renounces the existing German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact on April 28. [Wikipedia]

1939
Before World War II, 3,300,000 Jews people lived in Poland – ten percent of the general population of some 33 million. Poland was the largest population center of the European Jewish world. [Wikipedia]

1939
Between 1933 and 1939, 14,000 anti-Jewish laws are passed in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

1939
78,000 Jews leave Germany.

100,000 Jews leave Austria by May 1939. 113,824 Jews remain.

By the end of 1939, most young Jews have left Austria. 55,000 to 60,000 Jews, most of them elderly, remain.

1939
650,000 children are moved from London and other major cities to rural areas in England.

1939
300,000 Germans, 90% of them Jewish, apply for visas to the United States.

1939
US admits only 90,000 immigrants in 1939.

1939
Laurence A. Steinhardt is appointed US Ambassador to the Soviet Union. This is one of the most sensitive assignments in the US Department of State. Steinhardt is one of the rare Jewish senior diplomats in the US Foreign Service. Although Steinhardt has been involved in Zionist movements since the 1920s, he is at first unreceptive to helping Jewish refugees.

1939
George Mandel-Mantello, a Romanian Jew, is appointed Honorary Consul of El Salvador in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, stationed in Geneva. He will use this post to issue thousands of protective papers to Jews in Eastern Europe.

Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas appoints Gilberto Bosques Consul General in France. He maintains consulates in Paris and Marseilles. Bosques issues thousands of visas to Spanish Republican soldiers who are trapped in southern France. Eventually, he issues more than 40,000 visas to these anti-Fascist fighters. Many of them immigrate to Mexico. Bosques also issues visas to thousands of Austrian and German Jews. Most of these Jews use the transit visa to escape out of southern France. 1,800 of these Jews eventually immigrate to Mexico.

1939
Great Britain sets up major effort to break the German enigma codes. It is called Project Ultra.

1939
Jewish groups in the US are pessimistic about the plight of German and Austrian Jews, but few of these organizations realize the extreme danger the Jews will face in the near future. The Jewish community in the US cannot agree on a unified or effective plan to help German and Austrian Jews.

1939
Moses A. Leavitt returns from Palestine to become the Secretary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He appoints Joseph J. Schwartz has Assistant Secretary. The Jewish Joint is virtually the sole representative of American Jews in Europe. It sets up its European headquarters in Paris.

1939
Between 1929 and 1939, the American Jewish Joint spends $24.4 million for Jewish rescue and relief. JDC claims to have helped 177,500 German Jews leave greater Germany.

1939
By the end of 1939, Jewish welfare organizations support 52,000 Jews in Germany, mostly elderly.

1939
The "Voyage of the damned": S.S. St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, is turned back by Canada, Cuba, and the US. After they were denied entry to those places, the refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and France. Historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them were murdered in death camps during World War II.

1939
The Joint works with the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR), set up in London. It also establishes the Coordinating Foundation to provide money to help German Jews emigrate.

1939
The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) is established to raise money for overseas agencies outside of Palestine. This funds refugee rescue and relief efforts of the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society.

1939
60 anti-alien proposals are introduced into the US Congress in 1939. These proposed laws are supported by so-called patriotic and nativist organizations. American public opinion polls indicate that opinion against changing immigration laws to favor refugees goes from 67% in 1938 to 83% in 1939.

1939
American public opinion against liberalizing immigration for refugees goes from 67% in 1938 to 83% in 1939.

January 1939
The Nazi Foreign Office states that “the ultimate aim of Germany’s Jewish policy [is] the immigration of all Jews living on German territory.”

January 1, 1939
In Germany all Jewish-owned businesses are permanently closed under the Law Excluding Jews from Commercial Enterprises.

Mandatory identification cards are required of all Jews in Germany and Austria.

Jews banned from working with German citizens.

January 10, 1939
Hitler announces to the German Reichstag [Parliament] that a world war will result in “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

January 14, 1939
Pope Pius XI urges foreign diplomats accredited to the Holy See to give as many visas as possible to victims of German and Italian racial persecution.

January 24, 1939
Reinhardt Heydrich is given authority by Göring to “solve the Jewish question by emigration and evacuation in the way that is most favorable under the conditions prevailing at present.” Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung (Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration) in Berlin is created by Göring and Eichmann. This is based on the Austrian model.

January 25, 1925
Birth of the Atomic Age. A uranium atom is split for the first time at Columbia University in the United States.

January 27, 1939
Plan Z is ordered by Hitler a major 5-year naval expansion program intended to build a huge German fleet capable of defeating the Royal Navy by 1944.

January 30, 1939
Hitler states in his speech in the Reichstag: “It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole world is oozing sympathy for the poor, tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when in comes to helping them.”

January 31, 1939
Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas promises to protect life and property for Jewish immigrants throughout Mexico.

February 3, 1939
The Finnish people begin a nationwide collection of funds for Jewish German refugees.

February 5, 1939
The President of France rebukes the racist policies of Nazi Germany.

February 9, 1939
The Wagner-Rogers bill is introduced into the US Congress. It proposes to allow 10,000 refugee children under 15 years of age to be admitted to the US in 1939-1940. The Non-sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children advocates for this legislation. The children will be taken care of with private money and assistance. This bill is supported by Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, Francis Biddle, and former US President Herbert Hoover. Due to complications, the bill is stalled and eventually put aside.

February 10, 1939
Achille Ratti, Pope Pius XI, dies in Rome at age 79.

March-September 1939
13,600 Viennese Jews are evicted from their apartments.

March 2, 1939
Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope Pius XII.

March 11, 1939
A law is passed in Hungary establishing the Hungarian Labor Service.

March 14, 1939
Slovakia (First Slovak Republic) is made into an independent country. It is ruled by a pro-Nazi government. Hitler reneges on his promises to respect the integrity of Czechoslovakia by creating the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, giving Germany full control of what remained of Czechoslovakia, including its significant military arsenal that later plays vital role in Germany's invasions of Poland and France. As a result, Czechoslovakia had disappeared.

March 15, 1939
German troops invade Czechoslovakia and occupy Prague. The Second Czechoslovak Republic is dissolved. Hitler incorporates Bohemia and Moravia into the Third Reich as a “Protectorate.” Another 120,000 Jews come under Hitler’s control. A total of 350,000 Jews are trapped in the Nazi web.

March 16, 1939
Hungary annexes the Carpatho-Ukraine.

March 17, 1939
A census determining the degree of Jewishness is taken of Austrian Jews. Jews who have three or four Jewish grandparents are counted as a full Jew. With two Jewish grandparents, they are categorized as “part Jew, grade I.” With one Jewish grandparent, “part Jew, grade II.” This census targets Jews for future arrests and deportations.

March 22, 1939
Adolph Hitler demands the return of the Free City of Danzig to Germany.

March 22, 1939
Germany annexes Memel, Lithuania, and forces Lithuania to sign Treaty of Acceptance.

March 28-29, 1939
Spanish Republican government surrenders to General Francisco Franco in Madrid, ending the Spanish Civil War.

March 1939
Consul Sugihara opens a Japanese consulate in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. His primary mission is as a military intelligence officer observing Russian troop movements.

March 31, 1939
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French President Edouard Daladier declare that Britain and France will go to war with Germany if Poland is attacked.

April 1939
After the Spanish Civil War ends, thousands of anti-Franco Republican soldiers flee to southern France.

The US recognizes Franco’s Nationalist government.

First concentration camp is established in France. It is designed to hold thousands of Spanish Republican soldiers who are fleeing into southern France.

April 1, 1939
The Spanish Civil War ends with a Nationalist victory. Spain is now a dictatorship with Francisco Franco as the head of the government.

April 3, 1939
German government declares Danzig, Poland, a free city. This is part of a strategic plan for the future invasion and war with Poland.

Hitler orders the German military to start strategic planning for Fall Weiss (“Case White”). It is the codename for the attack on Poland, planned to be launched on August 25, 1939. The German military High Command finalizes its operational on June 15, 1939. The invasion is begun on September 1, precipitating World War II.

April 7, 1939
Italy invades and occupies Albania. Albanian king flees to Greece.

April 7, 1939
Great Britain reinstates conscription.

April 7, 1939
Spain joins Anti-Comminturn Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan.

April 8, 1939
Chinese Consul General Ho is censured by his own government and a demerit entered into his records for disobeying orders and for continuing to issue thousands of visas to Austrian Jewish refugees in Vienna.

April 10, 1939
A retroactive vote approves Germany’s annexation of Austria.

April 15, 1939
President Roosevelt requests Hitler to respect the independence and sovereignty of 31 independent European nations. Hitler soon mocks this request in a speech at the Reichstag.

April 27, 1939
England reinstitutes draft into its armed forces.

Hitler nullifies 1935 naval treaty (Anglo-German Naval Agreement) and the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression with England.

April 28, 1939
Great Britain enacts legislation punishing crews and passengers of illegal immigrant ships to Palestine.

May 1939
US Consul General in Berlin Raymond Hermann Geist sends warning to the US Secretary of State that Jews are in danger. Geist has been issuing visas to help Germany Jews escape Germany.

May 3, 1939
Antisemitic laws are enacted in Hungary. Jews are forbidden in the professions of banking, teaching, law and serving in the legislature.

May 5, 1939
A second anti-Jewish law is enacted in Hungary. It defines who is a Jew and severely restricts Jewish participation in the Hungarian economy.

May 8, 1939
Franco’s Spain withdraws from the League of Nations.

May 11, 1939
Soviet–Japanese border conflicts: The Battle of Khalkhin Gol begins with Japan and Manchukuo against the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The battle ends in Soviet victory on September 16, influencing the Japanese not to seek further conflict with the Soviets, but to turn towards the Pacific holdings of the Euro-American powers instead. [Wikipedia]

May 15, 1939
Ravensbrück is established as a concentration camp for women in Germany. It is located 50 miles north of Berlin.

May 17, 1939
White Paper (MacDonald White Paper) of 1939: The British government restricts Jewish immigration to Palestine. As of April, only 75,000 Jewish immigrants will be allowed to enter Palestine in the next 5 years. It also restricts the ability of Jews to purchase and own land in Palestine.

May 17, 1939
Scandinavian countries Sweden, Norway, and Finland reject Germany's offer of non-aggression pacts.

May 22, 1939
Italy and Germany sign a ten-year “Pact of Steel” political and military alliance.

July 10, 1939
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain reaffirms support for Poland and makes it clear that Britain did not view Free City of Danzig as being an internal German-Polish affair and would intervene on behalf of Poland if hostilities broke out between the two countries. [Wikipedia]

July 13, 1939
British Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald announces in the House of Commons that illegal immigrants to Palestine will be deducted from the established White Paper quotas.

July 26, 1939
Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office of Jewish Emigration) is established in Prague by Adolph Eichmann. This office is to force Jews to emigrate by expropriating their assets and removing all of their civil rights.

July 30, 1939
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain writes “No doubt Jews aren’t a lovable people; I don’t care about them myself. But that is not sufficient to explain the pogroms.” This statement reflects many European leaders’ attitudes toward Jews and refugee problems.

August 2, 1939
German physicist and Nobel prize winner Albert Einstein, who has recently immigrated to the US, writes to President Roosevelt about developing an atomic bomb for the United States. This letter prompts action by Roosevelt results in the Manhattan Project.

August 11, 1939
Eichmann demands 70,000 Jews leave Czechoslovakia within one year. All Jewish property in Czechoslovakia is ordered registered. Six Jewish communities are dissolved, and 50 synagogues closed.

August 23, 1939
Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). Germany and the USSR agree not to attack each other. According to this pact, in the event of war, Hitler gives Stalin Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and eastern Poland, almost half of the country. On September 1, 1939. Germany invades Poland. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September, one day after a Soviet–Japanese ceasefire. After the invasions, the new border between the two countries is confirmed by the supplementary protocol of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The pact is terminated on June 22, 1941, when Germany invades the Soviet Union.

August 25, 1939
Great Britain and Poland sign an Anglo-Polish Alliance. England agrees to defend Poland if it is attacked. Because of the pact's signing, Hitler postponed his planned invasion of Poland from August 26 until September 1, 1939.

August 30, 1939
A French government memorandum reads: “All foreign nationals from territories belonging to the enemy must be brought together in special center.” This memorandum is in response to the flood of German, Austrian, Czech, and Spanish refugees entering France.

Summer 1939
Ruth Kleiger, a Mossad agent operating in Romania, is able to help 1,400 Jews escape to Palestine.

Fall 1939
The British cabinet allows 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia into Britain. This is later known as the Kindertransport. They come through the efforts of Jewish and non-Jewish relief agencies. The Central British Fund for German Jewry is particularly helpful. Ninety percent of these children never see their parents again.

The French government opens numerous concentration camps throughout France to house the influx of refugees entering the country. Thousands of Jews and refugee Spanish Republican soldiers are interned in the camps. Eventually, they become deportation centers to the Nazi death camps.

Roosevelt calls Congress into special session, urges repeal of the arms embargo mandated by the Neutrality Act of 1937.

September 1939
The Gestapo orders the Jewish community in Vienna to produce an alphabetical list of all residents in the city.

The Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (RVE) intensifies its efforts to help Jews leave Germany.

September 1939
Before World War II, 3,300,000 Jewish people lived in Poland – ten percent of the general population of some 33 million. Poland was the center of the European Jewish world.

September 1939
Swiss Consul Carl Lutz intervenes on behalf of 2,500 German nationals in Palestine who were being deported as enemy aliens by the British.

September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland. World War II begins. This is the first major Blitzkrieg (lightening war) of World War II. It is devastatingly effective. 58 German divisions including 9 Panzer divisions with 1,400 aircraft invade on three fronts. Poland’s soldiers are outnumbered three to one by Germany’s 1.5 million men. Poland collapses in three weeks. [Wikipedia]

“The German "concept of annihilation" (Vernichtungsgedanke) that later evolves into the Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") enables the rapid advance of Panzer (armored) divisions, dive bombing, which resulted in the killing of large numbers of refugees crowding the transportation facilities, and aerial bombing of undefended cities. Deliberate bombing of civilians took place on a massive scale from the first day of the war. The German forces, ordered by Hitler to act with the harshest cruelty, massively engaging in murder of Polish civilians. [Wikipedia]

The number of Jews in Poland on September 1, 1939, amount to about 3,474,000 people. There are 1,926 Jewish communities across the country. One hundred thirty thousand soldiers of Jewish descent. 2,212,000 Polish Jews come under direct Hitler’s control. As of September 1, 1939 (approximately 10% of the total population) primarily centered in large and smaller cities: 77% live in cities and 23% in the villages. They make up about 50%, and in some cases even 70% of the population of smaller towns, especially in Eastern Poland. Prior to World War II, the Jewish population of Łódź numbers about 233,000, roughly one-third of the city’s population. The city of Lwów (now in Ukraine) has the third-largest Jewish population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). Wilno (now in Lithuania) has a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the city's total. In 1938, Kraków's Jewish population numbers over 60,000, or about 25% of the city's total population. In 1939 there are 375,000 Jews in Warsaw or one-third of the city's population. Only New York City had more Jewish residents than Warsaw. During the September Campaign some 20,000 Jewish civilians and 32,216 Jewish soldiers are killed, 61,000 are taken prisoner by the Germans; the most did not survive. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who are released ultimately are sent to Nazi ghettos and labor camps and suffer the same fate as other Jewish civilians in the Holocaust in Poland. Several hundred synagogues were blown up or burned by the Germans, who often force the Jews to do it themselves. The Germans turn the synagogues into factories, theaters, or prisons. By 1945, almost all the synagogues in Poland are destroyed. [Wikipedia]

The first German anti-Jewish measures involve a policy of expelling Jews from Polish territories annexed by Germany. The westernmost provinces, of Greater Poland and Pomerelia, turn into new German Reichsgaue named Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland, with the intent to completely Germanize them through settler colonization (Lebensraum-living space). Annexed directly to the new Warthegau district, the city of Łódź absorbs an initial influx of 40,000 Polish Jews forced out of surrounding areas. 204,000 Jews pass through the ghetto in Łódź. They were to be expelled to the Generalgouvernement.

During the September Campaign some 20,000 Jewish civilians and 32,216 Jewish soldiers were killed, while 61,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans; the majority did not survive.

Polish Jews later serve in almost all Polish units during the World War II. Many are killed or wounded, and many are decorated for their bravery and service. Jews fight with the Polish Armed Forces in the West, in the Soviet Polish People's Army as well as in several underground organizations and as part of Polish partisan units or Jewish partisan units. [Wikipedia]

Between 5,000 and 10,000 Polish Jews in Germany are arrested and put into concentration camps. Few survive.

Aktion [operation] Tannenberg is started. Einsatzgruppen [special troops] are sent to murder Jews, Polish soldiers, political leaders and intellectuals in Poland. According to some records, nearly 500,000 Polish Jews and other civilians are killed.

September 1, 1939
The British and French Armies mobilize, but do nothing to intervene in the attack on the West. They lose an important opportunity to stop German aggression.

September 1, 1939
A euthanasia program to kill physically and mentally handicapped people in Germany begins. It is called Operation T-4. Hitler authorizes doctors to kill mentally and physically disabled persons.

September 1, 1939
The French government enacts anti-Jewish measures against the Jews in Paris.

The French government arrests German and Austrian nationals who have landed in French ports but who are bound for the western hemisphere. Most of these are Jews fleeing the Nazis. Most are interned in Les Milles detention camp.

September 1, 1939
Night curfew for Jews in Germany is enforced.

September 1, 1939
By the outbreak of war, nearly 70% or 185,246 Jews in Austria have emigrated. Many go to southern France.

September 1, 1939
The Relief Committee for the War-Stricken Jewish Population (RELICO) is established in Geneva by the World Jewish Congress (WJC). It is headed by Dr. Abraham Silberschein. RELICO obtains and distributes more than 10,000 passports and visas through foreign consulates and representatives throughout Europe.

September 1, 1939
Two American relief agencies help Polish Jews after the German invasion. They are the American Red Cross, headed by William MacDonald, and the Commission for Polish Relief, led by John Hartigan and Columba Murray. These groups lead to the establishment of the Jüdishe Soziale Selbsthilfe (JSS; Jewish Self-Help), supported by the JDC.

September 2, 1939
Stutthof concentration camp is established.

September 2, 1939
The Jewish Joint announces that the Central Committee has been established in Warsaw, Poland.

September 3, 1939
In response to the German invasion of Poland, France, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand officially declare war on Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain forms a wartime cabinet with Winston Churchill as the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Although the UK and France declared war on Germany, little movement takes place on the western front. The offensive in the West that the Poles understood they were promised did not materialize. The Polish government is initially not fully aware of the degree of the country's isolation and the hopelessness of its situation. [Wikipedia]

The German armored corps quickly thwart all attempts of organized resistance and the Polish border defenses are broken along all the axes of attack. Crowds of civilian refugees fleeing to the east blocked roads and bridges. The Germans are also able to circumvent concentrations of the Polish military and arrive in the rear of Polish units. [Wikipedia]

September 4, 1939
Germans take Częstochowa, Poland.

September 4, 1939
All Austrian and German male refugees residing in France between the ages of 17 and 50 years are ordered to report for internment.

September 8, 1939
German armored units reached the Wola district and south-western suburbs of the city of Warsaw. Despite German radio broadcasts claiming to have captured Warsaw, the initial enemy attack was repelled and soon afterwards Warsaw was placed under siege.

September 8, 1939
The Ciepielów massacre was one of the largest and most documented war crimes of the Wehrmacht during its invasion of Poland. On that day, the forest near Ciepielów was the site of a mass murder of 250 Polish prisoners of war from the Polish Upper Silesian 74th Infantry Regiment. The massacre was carried out by soldiers from the German Wehrmacht.

September 9, 1939
All radios are confiscated from Jews in Germany.

September 9, 1939
In Warsaw, Major Włodarkiewicz, Second Lieutenant Pilecki, Second Lieutenant Jerzy Maringe, Jerzy Skoczyński, and brothers Jan and Stanisław Dangel founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. TAP was based on Christian values. From 25 November 1939 until May 1940, Pilecki was TAP's inspector and chief of staff; from August 1940, he headed its 1st branch (organization and mobilization).

September 10, 1939
Germany occupies and controls most of Western Poland.

September 12, 1939
The Luftwaffe begins bombing Warsaw.

On September 13, the town of Frampol, Poland with a population of 4,000 is bombed by the German bombers of Luftwaffe. The town had no military value, and the bombing was seen as a practice run.

September 17, 1939
Soviet Army invades and occupies Poland’s eastern section. The army enters virtually unopposed. In accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, the Soviet Union invades Poland from the east. By October 1939, the Second Polish Republic is split in half between two totalitarian powers. Germany occupies 48.4 percent of western and central Poland. [Wikipedia]

Racial policy of Nazi Germany regards Poles as "sub-human" and Polish Jews beneath that category, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence. One aspect of German foreign policy in occupied Poland is to prevent its ethnically diverse population from uniting against Germany. The Soviet annexation is accompanied by the widespread arrests of government officials, police, military personnel, border guards, teachers, priests, judges etc. The Soviet NKVD massacres prisoners and deports 320,000 Polish nationals to the Soviet interior and the Gulag slave labor camps where, as a result of the terrible conditions, about half of them die before the end of war. [Wikipedia]

The Nazi plan for Polish Jews is one of concentration, isolation, and eventually total annihilation in the Holocaust also known as the Shoah. Similar policy measures toward the Polish Catholic majority focuses on the murder or suppression of political, religious, and intellectual leaders as well as the Germanization of the annexed lands which include a program to resettle ethnic Germans from the Baltic states and other regions onto farms, ventures and homes formerly owned by the expelled Poles including Polish Jews. The response of the Polish majority to the Jewish Holocaust covers an extremely wide spectrum, often ranging from acts of altruism at the risk of endangering their own and their families lives, through compassion, to passivity, indifference, blackmail, and denunciation. Polish rescuers faced threats from unsympathetic neighbors, the Polish-German Volksdeutsche, the ethnic Ukrainian pro-Nazis, as well as blackmailers called szmalcowniks, along with the Jewish collaborators from Żagiew and Group 13. The Catholic rescuers of Jews are betrayed under duress by the Jews in hiding following capture by the German Order Police battalions and the Gestapo, which resulted in the Nazi murder of the entire networks of Polish helpers. [Wikipedia]

Hundreds of Jews trapped in the German section escape behind Soviet lines. Eventually, between 300,000-400,000 Jewish refugees flee. Though they are treated badly by the Soviet government, many survive the war. Eventually, more than one million Jews escape from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union. Fifty percent of them enter the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Most of these Jews survive the war. [Wikipedia]

Wehrmacht reaches the city of Brest-Litovsk on the Polish/Soviet border.

September 18, 1939
Wehrmacht occupies Lublin. Jews are required to wear a yellow star and work in forced labor battalions. Synagogues are destroyed and religious services banned.

September 19, 1939
Soviet army occupies Vilna, Lithuania.

September 19, 1939
The Central Jewish Committee in Warsaw takes the name Koordinatzie-Komitet (KK). Lieb Neustadt becomes Chairman. His Secretary is Dr. Emmanuel Ringelblum, a member of the JDC. The KK begins supplying relief and shelter for Warsaw Jews.

September 19, 1939
Witold Pilecki of the Secret Polish Army is one of 2,000 men arrested by Germans. He used the identity documents of Tomasz Serafiński, who had been mistakenly assumed to be dead. He is deported to Auschwitz where, under Serafiński's name, he was assigned prisoner number 4859. In autumn 1941 he was promoted by his superiors to lieutenant. While working at Auschwitz, Pilecki organized an underground Military Organization (ZOW). Its tasks were to better inmate morale, provide news from outside, distribute extra food and clothing to its members, set up intelligence networks, and train detachments to take over the camp in the event of a relief attack. ZOW was organized as secret cells, each of five members.

“While at Auschwitz, Pilecki secretly wrote reports and sent them to Home Army headquarters. The first dispatch in October 1940, described the camp and the ongoing murder of inmates thru starvation and brutal punishments; it is used as the basis of a Home Army report on "The Terror and Lawlessness of the Occupiers". Further dispatches of Pilecki's are also smuggled out by prisoners who escape from Auschwitz. The reports' purpose may have been to get the Home Army command's permission for ZOW to stage an uprising to liberate the camp; however, no such response came from the Home Army. [Wikipedia]

September 21, 1939
Chiefs of Einsatzgruppen, in cooperation with German civil and military leaders, are ordered to establish Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland. The aim of the ghettos is to segregate Jews from Polish society. The plan is to murder Jews slowly by starvation and disease, to kill them by shooting them on the spot, and eventually to deport them.

September 25, 1939
In Austria, a night curfew is enforced for Jews.

September 27, 1939
Warsaw surrenders after three days of intense bombardment by the Luftwaffe. Approximately 140,000 Polish troops left the city and were taken as prisoners of war.

The Germans move large numbers of Jews away from more than 100 areas in western Poland.

September 27, 1939
The Reichssicherheitshauptamt [Reich Security Main Office; RSHA] is established. This office will be one of the main instruments for the deportation and murder of millions of Jews and others throughout Europe.

September 28, 1939
After Warsaw surrenders Germany and the Soviet Union partition Poland. German forces occupy Warsaw.

September 29, 1939
Jews are seized by Germans for forced labor throughout Poland. Jewish schools are shut down.

End of September 1939
By September 1939, nearly 70% of the 185,246 Jews in Austria (approximately 130,000 Jews) had emigrated.

Between September 1939 and early 1941, 12,000 Jews escape Europe and enter Palestine illegally.

October 1939
Between October 1939 and July 1942, a system of ghettos is imposed for the confinement of Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto is the largest in all of World War II, with 380,000 people crammed into an area of 1.3 sq mi (3.4 km2). The Łódź Ghetto is the second largest, holding about 160,000 prisoners. Other large Jewish ghettos in leading Polish cities include Białystok Ghetto in Białystok, Częstochowa Ghetto, Kielce Ghetto, Kraków Ghetto in Kraków, Lublin Ghetto, Lwów Ghetto in present-day Lviv, Stanisławów Ghetto also in present-day Ukraine, Brześć Ghetto in present-day Belarus, and Radom Ghetto among others. Ghettos are also established in hundreds of smaller settlements and villages around Poland. The overcrowding, dirt, lice, lethal epidemics such as typhoid and hunger all result in countless deaths.

Once the ghettos are sealed off, death by starvation and disease became rampant, alleviated only by the smuggling of food and medicine by Polish gentile volunteers, in what was described by Ringelblum as "one of the finest pages in the history between the two peoples". In Warsaw, up to 80 percent of food consumed in the Ghetto was brought in illegally. The food stamps introduced by the Germans, provide only 9 percent of the calories necessary for survival. In the two and a half years between November 1940 and May 1943, 100,000 Jews die in the Warsaw Ghetto of starvation and disease; and around 40,000 in the Łódź Ghetto in the four-years between May 1940 and August 1944. By the end of 1941, most ghettoized Jews had no savings left to pay the SS for further bulk food deliveries.

During the occupation of Poland, the Germans use various laws to separate ethnic Poles from Jews. In the ghettos, the population is separated by putting non-Jewish Poles into the "Aryan Side" and the Polish Jews into the "Jewish Side". Poles found giving help to a Jewish Pole is subject to the death penalty. Another law implemented by the Germans was that Poles were forbidden from buying from Jewish shops, and if they did, they were subject to execution. Many Jews try to escape from the ghettos in the hope of finding a place to hide outside of it, or of joining the partisan units. When this proved difficult escapees often return to the ghetto on their own. If caught, Germans would murder the escapees and leave their bodies in public view. Despite these terror tactics, attempts at escape from ghettos continue until their liquidation. [Wikipedia]

October 1939
US Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes submits a proposal to US President Roosevelt to allow European Jews to immigrate to the Territory of Alaska or the Virgin Islands. Ickes is sympathetic to the plight of Jewish refugees. Roosevelt tentatively agrees to these plans, but severely limits the quota of Jews to Alaska. These plans are never implemented.

October 1939
Hitler extends power of doctors to kill mentally and physically disabled persons.

October 1, 1939
The Wehrmacht enters Warsaw, which begins a period of German occupation that lasts until the devastating Warsaw Uprising and later until January 17, 1945, when German troops abandon the city due to the advance of Soviet forces.

Around 18,000 civilians of Warsaw are killed during the siege. As a result of the air bombardments, 10% of the city's buildings are entirely destroyed and further 40% are heavily damaged.

October 1, 1939
The Polish government in exile is established in Paris, France. After the invasion and occupation of France, it moves to London, England.

October 3, 1939
US declares neutrality in the European war.

October 4-5, 1939
Poland surrenders to Germany.

Hitler tours Warsaw, Poland, and views victory parade.

October 4-5, 1939
Warsaw Judenrat (Jewish Council) is established. Adam Czerniakow, its leader, will be forced to cooperate in enforcing German policies.

October 7, 1939
Eichmann is ordered to prepare deportation of Jews from Vienna to the Lublin district.

October 10, 1939
Germany creates Generalgovernment headed by Hans Frank in German-occupied Poland. Its headquarters are in Krakow. The soon-to-be-established murder camps will be located in this area.

October 12, 1939
Germany begins deportation of Austrian and Czech Jews to Poland to the so-called Lublin Reserve.

October 16, 1939
The Intergovernmental Committee meets in Washington to discuss the refugee crisis. FDR calls for a major plan to resettle Jewish refugees from Europe into a “supplemental national home.” A number of major proposals are submitted to Roosevelt. Because of Roosevelt’s indifference and lack of attention, no plan is adopted.

October 20, 1939
First deportation of Austrian Jews from Vienna to Poland. In one month, 1,672 Jews arrive in Lublin.

October 26, 1939
The first deportation of 600 Czech Jews is sent to Poland. Soon, 10,000-20,000 Czech Jews are expelled from Moravska-Ostrava.

October 26, 1939
Hans Frank issues an order that forces all Jews between 14 and 60 into mandatory labor.

October 28, 1939
Lithuanian army enters Vilna. Lithuanians instigate a pogrom against Jews that lasts three days.

October 29, 1939
Warsaw Judenrat is ordered to conduct census of Jews.

October 30, 1939
Himmler orders Jews to be removed from the rural areas of Western Poland. Hundreds of Jewish communities are dispersed and destroyed forever.

October 30, 1939
A report critical of the treatment of Jews in concentration camps is released by the British government.

November 1939
US passes the Neutrality Act of 1939. US repeals arms embargo.

Plot to overthrow Hitler planned by the German generals at Zossen, Germany, is never implemented.

November 4, 1939
Roosevelt signs bill enabling belligerent nations to purchase war material from the US on a cash and carry basis. Due to the British Naval blockade, only Britain and France are able to purchase materials.

November 6, 1939
Sonderaktion Krakau terror operation by Nazis against university professors, targeting Poland's intellectual class. It is carried out as part of the much broader action plan, the Intelligenzaktion, to eradicate the Polish intellectual elite especially in those centers (such as Kraków) that are intended by the Germans to become culturally German. 184 persons are arrested and jailed. On November 27, 1939, at night, they are loaded onto a train to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and in March 1940, to Dachau concentration camp.

November 8, 1939
Plot to kill Hitler by using a bomb at Bürgerbraukeller in Munich.

November 11, 1939
Portuguese Foreign Ministry issues foreign policy statement that Jews and other refugees “expelled from countries of their nationality from whence they came” were forbidden entry into Portugal.

November 12, 1939
All the Jews from the newly established area of Warthegau, Poland, are to be removed.

Deportation of the Jews from Lodz, Poland, begins.

November 15, 1939
The Fideikommussirat (The Estate Commission) is established by German occupation authorities in Poland to confiscate Jewish property.

November 23, 1939
The Nazis order Polish Jews in the occupied area of the General Government to wear a yellow Star of David. Jewish businesses must also be marked with a yellow star.

November 28, 1939
A law to establish Jewish councils, called Judenräte, in the Nazi general government in Poland, is enacted. These councils convey German occupation orders to the Jewish community.

November 29, 1939
SS chief Himmler signs order to kill Jews who do not report to deportation.

November 30, 1939
Soviet Union invades Finland. War lasts until March 13, 1940.

December 1939
By the end of 1939, approximately 1.8-1.9 million Jews live in German occupied Poland. 610,000 live in Northwest Poland. 360,000 live in the Warsaw area. Approximately 1.3 million Jews reside in the Russian occupied area of Eastern Poland.

December 1939
4,000 Jews are leaving Austria monthly. A Nazi report declares there are too many Jews remaining in Vienna and in Austria.

December 1939
FDR appoints his friend Myron C. Taylor as personal representative to the Vatican. Roosevelt hopes to move the Vatican toward the rescue of refugees.

December 2, 1939
Initiation of poison gas vans to murder mental patients in Germany.

December 5-6, 1939
Germans seize Jewish property in Poland. This includes homes, businesses and bank accounts.

December 14, 1939
Soviet Union expelled from the League of Nations following their invasion and occupation of Poland.

December 18, 1939
Food rations for Jews living in Germany are significantly reduced.

Return to Chronology of Jewish History - Parts 1-9

Updated November 23, 2021