Chronology of Jewish History - Part 7
1944 - 1945
Chronology of Jewish History - Parts 1-9
Chronology of Jews in Denmark
20th Century
1940’s
1944
In 1944, more than 600,000 European Jews will be murdered.
1944
Early in 1944, US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt manages to have the Turkish government intercede on behalf of ten thousand Turkish Jews living in France. Steinhardt uses his good relationship with Turkish foreign minister Noman Menenencioglu in helping to untangle bureaucratic rules that prevented Jews from passing through Turkey as an escape route. Hirschmann and Steinhardt are able to get Turkish official in charge of visas, Kemel Aziz Payman, to liberalize some of the Turkish immigration laws. The World Jewish Congress estimates that by the end of the 1944, 14,164 Jews escaped through Turkey. Many more, however, entered Turkey illegally through Romania.
1944
The Representative Council of French Jewry (Conseil Représentatif des Juifs de France; CRIF) is founded to coordinate rescue activities among Jewish groups. They work with the Armée Juive to arrange rescue of Jews through Spain. They also participate with the French underground, both in the north and the south.
1944
Dr. Hans Georg Calmeyer, a lawyer serving in the German embassy in Holland, saves many Jews by having them classified as Aryan.
1944
A national underground organization in the Netherlands is set up to support Jews in hiding in Holland.
1944
José Rojas, Spanish Minister in Ankara, is directly responsible for the evacuation of 65 Jews to Spain.
1944
Consul General Rives Childs, head of the US legation in Tangier, Morocco, makes connections with the Spanish authorities in Madrid and Morocco and helps save more than 1,200 Jews. He persuades Spanish authorities to issue visas to Jewish refugees and to provide access to Spanish safe houses until they can emigrate.
1944
The Mexican and Brazilian diplomatic delegations, held in Bad Godesberg, Germany, are released and repatriated in a prisoner exchange with Germany.
1944
When Gilberto Bosques returns to Mexico City, he is greeted by thousands of cheering refugees who had received his life-saving visas. Bosques then serves on the commission of the Secretary of Foreign Relations.
1944
In late 1944 the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, CDJC) is established in Paris. Its goal is to document the persecution and martyrdom of French Jewry by collecting massive amounts of documentation, to study discriminatory laws, to support attempts at recovery of confiscated Jewish property, to document the suffering as well as the heroism of the Jews, and to record the attitude of governments, administrations, and various sectors of public opinion. [Wikipedia]
January 1944
In January 1944, after the passport rescue operation in Berne ended, the Polish government in exile granted Juliusz Kühl full diplomatic status and the minor rank of attaché.
January 14, 1944
Soviet Army launches a major offensive against the German siege of Leningrad.
January 16, 1944
US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and Treasury Department officials meet with President Roosevelt and present to him a report on the State Department’s suppression of information on the murder of the Jews of Europe. In his report, renamed Personal Report to the President, Morgenthau states that the State Department: Utterly failed to prevent the extermination of Jews in German-controlled Europe…Hid their gross procrastination behind such window dressing as “intergovernmental organizations to survey the whole refugee problem…”
“The matter of rescuing the Jews from extermination is a trust too great to remain in the hands of men who are indifferent, callous, perhaps even hostile.”
January 22, 1944
British and US Allied forces land at Anzio, Italy, southeast of Rome. The invasion beachhead is sealed off by German forces.
President Roosevelt establishes the War Refugee Board (WRB) in response to the report by Morgenthau and the Treasury Department regarding the failure of the US State Department to take significant action to protect Jews from mass murder. The WRB is put under the administration of Henry Morgenthau and the Treasury Department. It is charged with “taking all measures within its power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death.” John Pehle, of the Treasury Department, is appointed Director of the WRB. He has 30 employees. The US government appropriates one million dollars for the operation of this new agency. The vast majority of funds for operating the WRB will come from Jewish rescue and relief agencies, including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Hebrew Immigration Aid and Sheltering Society (HIAS).
Raoul Wallenberg is later selected for a mission representing the War Refugee Board to protect Hungarian Jews from deportation.
Notable employees of the War Refugee Board include Josiah E. DuBois and Randolph Paul (headquarters), Ira Hirschmann (Turkey), Roswell McClelland (Switzerland), Iver Olson (Sweden), Leonard Ackermann (North Africa and Italy).
In joint operations between the World Jewish Congress, the Joint Distribution Committee, and the War Refugee Board, between October 1943 and October 1944, 1,350 children and adolescents escaped to Switzerland, 770 children reached Spain with 200 parents, 700 children were hidden in Vichy France along with 4,000-5,000 adults. During this period, Lisbon was a center of false papers, including baptismal certificates, birth certificates and legitimate and illegitimate passports, visas and affidavits. By the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of Jews and other refugees escaped through Lisbon.
Statistics will later indicate that the War Refugee Board was successful in saving as many as 200,000 Jews in Eastern Europe.
January 27, 1944
The siege of Leningrad is broken, after more than 900 days and one million civilian deaths.
January 31, 1944
The National Committee Against Nazi Persecution and Extermination of Jews is organized. It is headed by Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy and includes Wendell Wilkie, Vice President Henry A. Wallis, and other prominent members of the Roosevelt administration.
February 1944
Jean Marie Musy, Former President of the Swiss Council, arranges with SS officials for the rescue and transportation of 1,200 Jews in Theresienstadt concentration camp to safety in Switzerland.
February 2, 1944
The War Refugee Board (WRB) proposes that the US State Department urge Spain to remove restrictions on refugees entering its territory. The US ambassador to Spain refuses to implement the plan.
February 10, 1944
Greek Jews from Salonika in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who hold Spanish citizenship are repatriated to Spain. This is largely due to the work of Spanish diplomat Radigales.
February 12, 1944
Ira Hirschmann, appointed a War Refugee Board representative, is assigned to Ankara, Turkey. He works closely with Ambassador Steinhardt in the rescue of thousands of Jews. Hirschmann effectively streamlines the procedure by which refugees escape through Turkey. Hirschmann actively publicizes the Turkish rescue operation and Steinhardt’s role in it. In addition, Hirschmann negotiates with the Romanian ambassador in Turkey, Alexander Cretzianu, for the rescue and rehabilitation of 48,000 Jewish survivors of concentration camps in Transnistria.
February 14, 1944
Josef Winniger, an officer in the German intelligence, tells Jewish leaders in Budapest of a plan for German occupation of Hungary.
February 14, 1944
Under pressure from the Allies, Romanian leader Ion Antonescu agrees to return Jewish deportees to Romania from Transnistria.
February 19-26, 1944
German Luftwaffe carries out heavy raids against London. It is known as the “Little Blitz.”
February 28, 1944
Massacre of the Polish inhabitants of the village Huta Pieniacka, located in modern-day Ukraine. Estimates of the number of victims killed ranges from 500, to 1,200.
March 1944
War Refugee Board representative in Turkey, Ira Hirschmann, persuades the Romanian ambassador to Turkey, Alexander Cretzianu, to persuade the Romanian government to transfer 48,000 Jews to the interior of the country, thus saving their lives.
March 4, 1944
In Huta Stara near Buczacz, Polish Christians and the Jewish countrymen they protected are herded into a church by the Nazis and burned alive
March 6, 1944
US Army Air Force (AAF) begins major daylight bombing of Berlin.
March 15, 1944
Soviet Army begins liberation of Transnistria.
March 19, 1944
Germany occupies Hungary and immediately implements anti-Jewish decrees; places the Hungarian government at the disposal of Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Final Solution.
Hundreds of desperate Budapest Jews besiege the American legation, where Carl Lutz has his headquarters. Jewish Council of Palestine office seized by pro-Nazi Hungarian officials. Hungarian borders are closed against immigration. Consul Lutz begins to issue thousands of additional Schutzpässe (protective letters). These Swiss documents are in fact honored by German SS authorities. Consul Lutz has 8,000 persons register for immigration to Palestine. Lutz is not immediately aware of deportation plans. After receiving secret information about planned deportations, Lutz appeals to the other neutral legations in Budapest, including Sweden, Spain, Portugal and the Vatican, for a united front against the deportations of the Hungarian Jews.
March 20, 1944
Eichmann orders the establishment of Judenrat (Jewish councils) representing Hungarian Jews. This is a preliminary step to ghettoization and deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
March 24, 1944
President Roosevelt sends a stern warning to Hungarian officials against harming the Jews.
March 1944
Miguel Angel de Muguiro, Spain’s diplomatic attaché in Budapest, is openly critical and protests Hungarian and German antisemitic policies. Muguiro is recalled to Spain for his outspoken denunciation of the murder of Hungarian Jews.
Spring 1944
Swedish government accepts 160 Jewish refugees from Finland.
April 1944
Gallup poll shows 70% of Americans approve setting up emergency refugees camps in the United States.
April 1944
Ira Hirschmann’s activities with Steinhardt to rescue Eastern European Jews appear in major news articles throughout the world. This publicity helps the War Refugee Board promote its future rescue activities.
April 1944
The SS in France conduct arrests without the help of French police. As a result, the arrests are way below German anticipated quotas.
April 1944
The Polish government in exile in London appoints a Council for the Rescue of the Jewish Population. It operates until the summer of 1945.
April 1944
International Red Cross representative in Romania Charles Kolb attempts to organize the relief and rescue of Jews from Romania to the Black Sea, to Turkey and then to Palestine. He is aided by the Swiss Minister in Romania, Rene de Weck and Swiss consular officer Hans Keller, the Romanian Red Cross and representatives of the War Refugee Board.
April 2, 1944
Soviet Army in Ukraine crosses into Romania.
April 5, 1944
Jews of Hungary forced to wear the star; Jewish businesses and bank accounts confiscated; Jews placed in ghettoes.
April 5, 1944
Joel Brand and Rudolph Kasztner, of the Rescue and Relief Committee in Budapest, meet with SS with a plan to ransom Jews from deportation. This plan ultimately fails.
April 7, 1944
Two Jewish prisoners, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, escape Auschwitz and reach Slovakia with detailed information about the mass murder of Jews in the camp. In Slovakia, along with Alfred Wetzler, Vrba reports the murder of the Jews in Auschwitz to the Working Group (Pracovná Skupina). Vrba worked in the administration office in Birkenau and memorized many of the documents he saw. He even was able to report on the number of Jews murdered in various transports. Their report became known as the Auschwitz Protocols, which were widely disseminated by the Working Group. Their report, called the Auschwitz Protocols, (supplemented by information brought by two more escapees) reaches the free world in June. [Wikipedia]
April 11-18, 1944
The Allied forces in Italy break through the major German defensive line at Monte Cassino. This enables Allied troops to break out of the Anzio beachhead.
April 15, 1944
Thousands of Hungarian Jews move into newly established ghettoes.
April 28, 1944
Deportations of Hungarian Jews from the ghettoes in the countryside to Auschwitz begin.
May 1944
Only one transport leaves France for Auschwitz.
May 1944
Friedrich Born, representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, arrives in Budapest and begins to issue thousands of Swiss Red Cross documents to protect Jewish refugees.
May 1944
George Mandel Mantello issues thousands of El Salvador visas to Jewish refugees in Budapest through Consul Lutz’s office. He is later arrested by Swiss police for violating Swiss neutrality.
May 1944
The War Refugee Board (WRB) establishes its first refugee camp at Fedala in North Africa.
May 2, 1944
First Jews deported from rural Hungary arrive in Auschwitz.
May 15-July 9, 1944
More than 438,000 Hungarian Jews from the countryside are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them are murdered on arrival. It takes 148 trains to carry them there.
May 15, 1944
Dean of the diplomatic corps in Budapest and Papal Nuncio Angelo Rotta condemns the deportation of Jews.
May 15, 1944
Carl Lutz places the staff of the Jewish Council from Palestine under his diplomatic protection, and renames it “Department of Emigration of the Swiss Legation.” Lutz starts to issue tens of thousands of Schutzbriefe (protective letters), indicating applicants for immigration under formal Swiss protection. Lutz receives support by the newly appointed Swiss representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Friedrich Born.
May 17, 1944
Assembly of Reform Churches in Hungary protest the treatment and deportations of Hungarian Jews.
May 27, 1944
Two additional Jewish prisoners escape from Auschwitz. They are Czeslan Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin. They report on the murder in the death camp to members of the Working Group in Slovakia.
June 1944
Appeals from the Jewish underground in Slovakia to bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz reach Switzerland. In a letter the U.S. War Department turn downs appeals to bomb rail lines between Hungary and Auschwitz.
June 1, 1944
President Franklin Roosevelt approves plan to allow 1,000 refugees in Italy to come to a camp in the United States.
June 2, 1944
Chairman of the Jewish Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency requests bombing of the rail lines to the Auschwitz death camp.
June 3, 1944
German troops withdraw from Rome, declaring it an open city.
June 4, 1944
The 5th US Army, commanded by General Mark Clark, liberates Rome.
June 6, 1944
D-Day: Operation Overlord is launched. Allied invasion at Normandy, in northwestern France, opens second front. Seven Allied divisions attack in the largest amphibious operation in history. The invasion involves more than 4,000 ships and 1,000 transport planes.
Deportations from France are halted. Himmler and Eichmann consider the deportation from France to be a failure. Nearly 80% of French Jews survive.
June 7, 1944
The first part of the deportation and murder of Hungarian Jews is complete. 290,000 Jews have been killed in 23 days.
June 11, 1944
Dr. Waldemar Langlet, Swedish Red Cross delegate in Budapest, Hungary, and his wife Nina Langlet along with his assistant, Alexander Kasser, launch a humanitarian campaign to issue Swedish Red Cross protective passes to Hungarian Jews.
June 13, 1944
Germany launches secret weapon called the V-1 (Vergeltungswaffen [vengeance weapon]). This is an unmanned flying bomb that uses jet technology. It is launched from mainland France to bomb English cities.
June 24, 1944
Jews in Budapest ordered to wear the yellow Star of David.
June 25, 1944
Pope Pius XII sends telegram to Hungarian Regent Horthy to stop persecution of “a large segment of the Hungarian people because of their race.” The Pope does not specifically mention Jews.
June 25-28, 1944
Negotiations with SS officials result in 21,000 Jews from southern and southeastern Hungary, including the areas of Baja Debrecen and Szeged, being transferred to Strasshoff, Austria, where they survive the war.
June 27, 1944
US government issues warning to Hungarian government and people regarding treatment of Hungarian Jews.
June 29, 1944
US War Department refuses request to bomb Auschwitz. The request is denied on the grounds that it would ostensibly divert resources needed in order to win the war. It is later discovered that US Air Force bombing raids routinely flew over the Auschwitz death camp.
July 1944
The War Refugee Board organizes the establishment of a temporary safe haven for more than 1,000 Jewish refugees. It is established in an old Army base in Oswego, New York.
July 1944
The Archbishop of Canterbury in England appeals to Hungarian government to stop deportation of Jews.
July 1944
Turkish Consul General Selahattin Ülkümen intercedes on behalf of Jewish Turkish nationals who are being deported from the island of Rhodes. More than 40 Jewish families were spared deportation to Auschwitz. In retaliation, the Nazis bombed the Turkish embassy, fatally wounding Ülkümen’s wife.
July 3, 1944
Soviet Army retakes Minsk from the German Army.
July 4, 1944
The Soviet Army reaches the 1939 Polish-USSR border.
July 7, 1944
Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy reassumes power and temporarily halts deportation of Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp. Almost all Hungarian Jews from the countryside have already been murdered. There are 300,000 Jews left in Hungary, 170,000 in and around Budapest. They are concentrated into two ghettoes. Lutz and other neutral diplomats place Jews under their diplomatic protection in over 100 safe houses. Nazi and Arrow Cross gangs continue to raid and murder in these areas.
July 8, 1944
The Kovno ghetto is liquidated. 2,000 Jews are killed and 4,000 deported to Germany.
July 9, 1944
The Allied Armies capture the city of Caen in Normandy, France.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest. He is employed by the War Refugee Board of the US Treasury Department. His mission is to save as many Jews as possible. Consul Lutz gives Raoul Wallenberg invaluable instructions on how to issue protective letters, which he often calls safe conduct passes, to save Jews in Budapest. Lutz’s activities also serve as a model for the Spanish, Portuguese, and Vatican embassies.
July 12, 1944
Don Angel Sans Briz, Minister (Ambassador) of Spain stationed in Budapest, issues 500 visas to Budapest Jews providing them protection from deportation and death marches. Also rents buildings that become protected by the Spanish legation.
July 13, 1944
Vilna is liberated by the Red Army.
July 18, 1944
Horthy announces deportation of Jews will be halted in Hungary.
July 18, 1944
Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo resigns after the defeat of the Japanese army by US forces on the Island of Saipan.
July 19, 1944
Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, Vatican Nuncio in Turkey (future Pope John XXIII) appeals to Hungarian Regent Horthy on behalf of 5,000 Hungarian Jews with Palestine visas. Roncalli provides Vatican certificates for Jews in hiding. Roncalli works closely with members of the Yishuv rescue committee in Turkey, including Ira Hirschmann and Joel Brand.
July 20, 1944
Attempted assassination of Hitler by opposition military officers at his headquarters in Rastenberg fails. In reprisal, thousands of Germans are murdered.
July 22, 1944
The Soviet Army captures Lublin, Poland. They liberate the German death camp of Majdanek, near Lublin.
July 22, 1944
Proclamation of the PKWN Manifesto by Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, operating in opposition of exiled-Polish government in London.
July 24, 1944
Carl Lutz establishes the “Glass House” at Vadász Street in Budapest.
July 28, 1944
The Soviet Army recaptures the city of Brest-Litovsk on the Polish-Soviet border. This Soviet offensive has virtually annihilated the army of German Field Marshal Ernst Busch.
July 31, 1944
The American Jewish Conference sponsors a major rally in Madison Square Park in New York to draw attention to the mass murder of Hungarian Jews.
August 1944
Based on a tentative understanding with the Hungarian authorities, Swiss Consul Lutz attempts to obtain a safe haven in Switzerland for at first 40,000 and later even for 200,000 Hungarian Jews. The Swiss Foreign Minister, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, accepts. The agreement is torpedoed twofold: a) Veesenmayer refuses to give German transit permits and Eichmann hints that he would murder the Jews en route, and b) the British refuse absolutely to have these people transferred from Switzerland to Palestine after the war.
Consul Lutz persuades authorities to let Jews protected by Switzerland be placed in 76 geschützte Häuser (protective houses) in the Szent-Istvan area of Budapest. There are over 30,000 persons carrying Lutz’s Schutzbriefe in these buildings. Later, 32 more Safe houses are added at the request of Raoul Wallenberg. Consul Lutz, with meager funds from the consulate, helps feed the inhabitants of this ghetto.
Lutz works with 500 Jewish Chalutzim (pioneers) who provide him with rapid communication with the entire community of Budapest and the Hungarian underground. This organization alerts Lutz to the transfer of Jews, deportations, death marches and actions by the Nazis and Arrow Cross. One hundred Chalutzim die in the fulfillment of their duty.
August 1-October 2, 1944
Polish resistance army in Warsaw begins actions against the German occupiers. It is by the Polish underground resistance, led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa). The Soviet Army outside the city refuses to come to their aid. Some 166,000 people lose their lives in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.
Warsaw is razed to the ground by the Germans, over 85% of the city was destroyed by January 1945. More than 150,000 Poles were sent to labor or concentration camps. On 17 January 1945, the Soviet Army entered a destroyed and nearly uninhabited Warsaw. Some 300 Jews were found hiding in the ruins in the Polish part of the city.
Perhaps as many as 17,000 Polish Jews who have either fought with the AK or had been in hiding. It is estimated that over 2,000 Polish Jews, some as well-known as Marek Edelman, and several dozen Greek, Hungarian and even German Jews freed by Armia Krajowa from Gesiowka concentration camp in Warsaw, take part in fighting against Nazis during 1944 Warsaw Uprising. [Wikipedia]
August 5-12, 1944
The Wola massacre the systematic killing of between 70,000 and 90,000 Poles in the Wola neighborhood of the Polish capital city, Warsaw, by the German Army and their Axis collaborators in the Azerbaijani Legion, as well as the mostly Russian RONA forces. The massacre was ordered by Adolf Hitler, who directed to kill "anything that moves" to stop the Warsaw Uprising soon after it began. [Wikipedia]
August 14, 1944
Operation Anvil. Allied forces land on the south coast of France. They quickly advance 20 miles on the first day.
August 17, 1944
US forces break out of the German defenses in western Normandy.
August 20, 1944
One hundred twenty-seven U.S. Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses drop high-explosives on the Buna factory areas of Auschwitz, less than five miles east of the gas chambers.
August 21, 1944
The diplomatic legations in Budapest of Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, the Vatican, and the Red Cross protest the resumption of deportations of Jews to Auschwitz. The diplomats from these legations were active in saving Jews from deportation to Auschwitz and the death marches. They all issued protective papers, documents, and other forms of identification. They housed, fed, and provided medical care for more than 100,000 Jews in Budapest. They set up apartments and homes as protected houses that were under the protection of the various legations. The following diplomats were active in saving Jews. Sweden: Carl Ivan Danielsson, Per Anger, Lars Berg, Raoul Wallenberg, Göte Carlsson, Dénes von Mezey. Swedish Red Cross: Sandor Kasze-Kasser, Dr. Valdemar Langlet and Nina Langlet, Asta Nilsson. Switzerland: Dr. Harald Feller, Maximillian Jaeger, Charles Lutz and Gertrud Lutz, Peter Zürcher, Ernst Vonrufs, Franz Bischof, Ladislaus Kluger. Swiss Red Cross: Jean de Bavier, Friedrich Born, Dr. Robert Schirmer, Hans Weyermann, Dr. Gyorgy Gergely. Vatican: Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Father Gennaro Verolino, Father Köhler (volunteer). Portugal: Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Dr. Carlos Almeida Afonseca de Sampayo Garrido, Gyula Gulden, Count Ferenc Pongrácz. Spain: Miguel Angel de Muguiro, Don Angel Sanz-Briz, Giorgio Perlasca. Poland: Henryk Slawik, Zimmerman. Romania: Florian Manoliu. Turkey: Abdülhalat Birden, Pertev Sevki Kantimir. Argentina: Alberto Bafico. Slovakia: Dr. Spisiak. International Red Cross: Sándor Újváry. Hungarian Red Cross: Sarolta Lukács. Germany: Gerhart Feine.
August 23, 1944
Horthy informs Eichmann that he will not cooperate with the deportation of Hungarian Jews.
August 24-25, 1944
Paris is liberated by Allied forces. The French forces, led by de Gaulle, lead the victory procession.
August 25, 1944
Himmler orders the halt of deportations from Budapest.
August 28-29, 1944
The Slovak National Uprising breaks out. 2,000 Jews take part; 269 are killed.
August 31, 1944
Soviet Army enters Bucharest, Romania.
Fall 1944
The Working Group in Slovakia comes up with a major proposal to rescue Jews. It is called the Europa Plan. The Plan calls for bribing SS officials to stop the deportations in Central and Eastern Europe. They negotiate with Alois Brunner and Kurt Becher. Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Dov Weissmandel are credited with devising this plan. It ultimately fails.
September 1944
Jewish rescue activist Recha Sternbuch contacts Jean Marie Musy, former Swiss president and an acquaintance of SS Chief Himmler. At Sternbuch’s request Musy, with help from his son Benoît Musy, negotiated with Himmler, who is willing to release Jews in concentration camps for ransom of one million dollars. On 7 February 1945 Musy delivered the first 1,210 inmates from Theresienstadt and more were promised at two-week intervals. Unfortunately, this initiative too was apparently obstructed by a Jewish leader in Switzerland. The Sternbuchs kept negotiating through Musy to the end of the war. There was an agreement to turn over four concentration camps essentially intact to the Allies in return for a USA guarantee to try the camp guards in court as opposed to shooting them on the spot. This saved the lives of large numbers of camp inmates
September 3, 1944
Brussels is liberated by British forces. More than 20,000 Jews remain alive; many had been in hiding.
September 3, 1944
Last deportation from the Westerbork transit camp.
September 3, 1944
As a result of a suggestion by Winston Churchill’s son Randolph, evacuation begins by air of 650 German, Austrian and Czech Jews from areas of Yugoslavia to Bari in Allied occupied Italy.
September 4, 1944
Finland surrenders to the Soviet Union.
September 4, 1944
British capture Antwerp, Belgium, and secure the port.
September 5, 1944
A new Slovak government is formed under Dr. Stefan Tiso (nephew of former president).
September 5, 1944
Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria.
September 8, 1944
Bulgaria changes sides and declares war on Germany.
The first V-2, German-built rocket, is launched against London. V-2s are built by Jewish slave laborers in the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camp.
September 11-16, 1944
The Octagon Conference is held in Quebec, Canada, between Roosevelt and Churchill. They plan the postwar occupation and demilitarization of Germany.
September 12, 1944
Soviet Army begins offensive on Budapest, Hungary.
September 16, 1944
Bulgaria surrenders to the Soviet Army.
September 17-18, 1944
Military operation called Market Garden is launched in the Netherlands and Germany by British and US divisions.
September 19, 1944
Germany disbands Danish political parties and ends Danish general strike.
September 20, 1944
Monsignor Angelo Roncalli sends protest about deportations to Dr. Stefan Tiso.
September 25, 1944
Hitler calls up remaining men between 16 and 60 in Germany for military service in the Volkssturm [people’s home army]. This is a last desperate attempt to defend the German homeland.
September 28, 1944
Members of the Working Group in Slovakia, including Gisi Fleischmann, are arrested by the SS.
September 29, 1944
Soviet Army invades German occupied Yugoslavia.
September 1944
Slovak National Uprising is suppressed by the German army.
October 1944
Gisi Fleischmann is deported to and murdered in the Auschwitz death camp.
October 1944
International Red Cross representative Georges Dunand arrives in Slovakia and intervenes on behalf of Jews. He works closely with Jurag Revesz, a Jewish youth leader.
October 2, 1944
International Committee of the Red Cross, under pressure, finally makes official inquiry to Germany on the status of all foreign prisoners in Germany and German-occupied territories.
October 2, 1944
The Polish resistance forces in Warsaw end the uprising against the German occupiers. The nearby Soviet forces refuse to aid the Poles in their uprising. 250,000 Poles are killed.
October 4, 1944
The British Army lands in German occupied Greece.
October 5, 1944
The British Colonial Office allows only 10,300 Jews to immigrate to Palestine. This will be at the rate of only 1,500 per month. This order rescinds an original offer made to the Jewish Agency of Palestine, which would originally allow all Jews reaching Turkey to enter Palestine.
October 6, 1944
Soviet Army enters Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
October 6-7, 1944
Jewish Sonderkommando [those working in the gas chambers and crematoria] managed to smuggle in gunpowder and blow up one of the gas chambers at Birkenau.
October 9, 1945
Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of France in Vichy, is convicted in a French court of treason. He is sentenced to death.
October 9-19, 1944
Churchill, Stalin, and Averell Harriman of the US, meet at the Moscow Conference in the Soviet Union. They discuss the war.
October 13, 1944
Soviet army liberates Riga, Latvia.
October 14, 1944
British Army liberates Athens.
October 14, 1944
German armored division enters and occupies Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Lakatos is removed. Ferenc Szálazi, head of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross party, is appointed Prime Minister.
October 14, 1944
War Refugee Board hears rumors of Jews being concentrated outside of Budapest for deportation. The WRB warns the Arrow Cross, “None who participate in these acts of savagery shall go unpunished…All who share the guilt shall share the punishment.”
October 15, 1944
Admiral Horthy tries to sue for peace with Soviet Union. Horthy is soon arrested by Nazi puppet government. Hungarian Arrow Cross, under Ferenc Szálasi, and Nazis introduce new reign of terror and murder thousands of Budapest Jews. Death marches to Austria are instituted.
Swiss Consul in Budapest Carl Lutz persuades pro-Nazi Arrow Cross to validate his letters of protection. Four thousand Jews seek protection within the American legation, shielded by Consul Lutz. Because of Lutz’s activities, the Szent-Istvan area escapes attack during this period. German minister Veesenmayer requests permission from Berlin to murder Consul Lutz. (Berlin never answers.) Consul Lutz evades Arrow Cross, who seem to be out to assassinate him.
Hungarian officials compel Lutz, Wallenberg and Born to transfer several thousand of their protected Jews to a fenced in ghetto in Pest. 70,000 people fill this ghetto, who suffer from starvation and cold.
Lutz, Wallenberg, Sanz-Briz, Perlasca, Born, Rotta and many other neutral diplomats and their helpers succeed in stopping death marches and protecting their safe houses. Acting under the protective umbrella of the neutral legations legation, the Chalutzim Jewish youth distribute thousands of forged protective letters to Jews in the death marches, saving them.
By the end of the war, the courageous diplomats are able to save the lives of more than 100,000 Jews in Budapest.
Dr. Sampayo Garrido, Portuguese Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, and later his replacement, Carlos Branquinho, issue more than 800 protective passes and establish safe houses to shelter Jews.
The Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest (Va’ada), headed by Otto Komoly, helps in the relieve efforts of Jews in the Budapest ghettoes. 5,000 Jewish children are housed in specially designated buildings.
October 20, 1944
SS troops under Eichmann round up 27,000 Jews in Hungary who were marched to the Austrian border, bound for deportation. Raoul Wallenberg and other neutral diplomats in Budapest follow behind these death marches and manage to rescue thousands of people. Occasionally, an entire death march column is rescued and returned to Budapest. The SS and Arrow Cross are greatly chagrined. Szálasi lodges a protest with the neutral legations for “sabotaging the Hungarian-German war effort.”
October 20, 1944
Tito’s partisans liberate Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
October 23, 1944
Adolf Eichmann leaves Budapest along with his SS troops.
October 27, 1944
Hungarian Regent Horthy resigns.
October 31, 1944
Himmler orders the murder of Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau to cease. The SS begin dismantling the camp.
October 1944
Henryk Slawik, the Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, issued thousands of documents certifying that Polish Jewish refugees were Christian. Slawik was caught and deported to Mauthausen, where he was murdered.
An Italian refugee living in Budapest, Giorgio Perlasca, becomes a Spanish citizen and volunteers with Minister Sans-Briz in mission to protect Jews in Budapest. By November, 3,000 Jews received Spanish protection in eight safe houses.
October 1944
Georges Dunand, delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, arrives in Slovakia with money from the Joint Distribution Committee (JCD) to save Jews. Dunand distributes these much-needed funds to refugees and helps a number of Jews escape deportation.
November 1944
Roosevelt elected President of the US for a fourth term.
November 4, 1944
Jewish, Nazi, and other allied leaders meet in Switzerland in a proposed rescue effort of Hungarian Jews.
November 8, 1944
Beginning of a new round of death marches of approximately 40,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria. Raids are conducted in the Swiss-and Swedish protected buildings, looking for Jews in possession of forged protective letters. Some are forced to go to Óbuda brickyards and on the death marches. Swedish consul Raoul Wallenberg, Swiss consul Lutz and his wife, Gertrud, frequently intervene and save Jews.
November 8, 1944
Himmler orders the end of the death marches in mid-November. Eichmann is summoned to Berlin and is confronted by Himmler, who orders him to stop all murder actions. Himmler orders all killing in the extermination camps to cease.
November 8, 1944
German Consul Gerhard Feine, Director of the Jewish Department of the German Plenipotentiary of Budapest, secretly informs Swiss Consul Lutz of Veesenmayer’s and Eichmann’s plans to deport and murder the Jews of Budapest.
November 10, 1944
Refusing to recognize the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross regime, the Swiss government recalls head of legation Maximilian Jaeger from Budapest. As Lutz’s supervisor, Jaeger has been active until then in protesting the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz.
November 11, 1944
British and Greek Armies complete the liberation of Greece.
November 12, 1944
The Central Committee of Polish Jews also referred to as the Central Committee of Jews in Poland and abbreviated CKŻP, is a state-sponsored political representation of the Jewish Community in Poland. It provides care and assistance to Jews who survived the Holocaust. It legally represented all CKŻP-registered Polish Jews in their dealings with the new government and its agencies. It existed until 1950 [Wikipedia]
November 13, 1944
In Budapest, a ghetto is set up for Jews without protection of neutral nations.
November 23-27, 1944
Swiss diplomats Leopold Breszlauer and Ladislaus Kluger issue 300 protective papers to Hungarian Jews at the Austro-Hungarian border.
November 26-29, 1944
Pest ghetto, with 63,000 Jews, is established. The ghetto contains 293 houses and apartments, with up to 14 persons per room.
December 1944
All foreign representatives are ordered to leave Budapest. Consul Carl Lutz and Wallenberg stay on with the intention of protecting thousands of Jews in the international ghetto. This area is under the protection of various neutral governments. They stay on as “a matter of conscience.” Arrow Cross bands attack and destroy the Swedish Legation. Swedish Minister Carl Ingvar Danielsson barely escapes death.
Spanish Minister Don Angel Sans-Briz leaves Budapest and is recalled to Spain. Perlasca appoints himself Spanish “Ambassador” and continues to issue Spanish protective passes through the end of the war. The Nazis honor his protective papers.
Dr. Harald Feller assumes post as Swiss Interim Chargé d’Affaires to Budapest, replacing Maximilian Jaeger. Feller works closely in support of Consul Lutz’s rescue activities. He personally hides 32 Jews in his own home.
December 1944
Under pressure from the Allies and the Red Cross, SS General Kurt Becher allows the Allies and relief agencies to supply medical and food supplies to inmates in concentration camps.
December 6, 1944
Saly Mayer, the Swiss representative of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, arranges for the transport of 1,355 Orthodox Jewish refugees from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to Basel, Switzerland.
December 16, 1944
German Army launches major offensive against the Allied Armies in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. It is called the Battle of the Bulge.
December 26, 1944
The US Third Army, under General Patton, liberates trapped US forces in the Belgian town of Bastogne.
December 26, 1944
The Soviet Army completes the encirclement of Budapest. Consul Lutz and refugees are besieged in the residence of the British Legation in Buda. Lutz is cut off from his office at the American legation in Pest. Lutz appoints Swiss lawyer Peter Zürcher to be his temporary representative. Zürcher persuades SS commanders, on threat of war crimes prosecution, to protect the Jews of the Pest ghetto. As a result, most of the 70,000 Jews of the Pest ghetto survive. Both Carl Lutz and Peter Zürcher contribute substantially to preserving the lives of the Jews of Budapest, of whom 124,000 survived. This is one of the largest rescues of Jews in the entire Holocaust.
1945
The Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects is created by the Supreme Allied Headquarters. Its purpose is to catch and prosecute Nazi war criminals.
1945
At the end of 1944, the number of Polish Jews in the Soviet and the Soviet-controlled territories is estimated at 250,000–300,000 people. Jews who escaped to eastern Poland from areas occupied by Germany in 1939 are numbering at around 198,000. Over 150,000 are repatriated or expelled back to new communist Poland along with the Jewish men conscripted to the Red Army from Kresy in 1940–1941. Their families died in the Holocaust. Those Jews who survive the Holocaust in Poland include those who are saved by the Poles (most families with children), and those who joined the Polish or Soviet resistance movement. Some 20,000–40,000 Jews are repatriated from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, up to 240,000 returning Jews might have resided in Poland mostly in Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków, Wrocław and Lower Silesia, e.g., Dzierżoniów (where there is a significant Jewish community initially consisting of local concentration camp survivors), Legnica, and Bielawa. [Wikipedia]
January 1945
Rescuer diplomats from the Ładoś Group – Ładoś, Rokicki, Kühl and Ryniewicz – were named in the letter of thanks from Agudat Israel.
January 1, 1945
Carl Burkhardt becomes head of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
January 1-16, 1945
By the beginning of 1945, the German Ardennes offensive, called the “Battle of the Bulge,” for which the Nazi leadership had risked so much, fails.
January 5, 1945
Five thousand Jews are taken from Swedish protective houses and moved to the central Pest ghetto.
January 7, 1945
Arrow Cross attacks Swedish protected houses on Jokai Street, Pest ghetto.
January 9, 1945
US Army, under General MacArthur, lands in Luzon, Philippine Islands.
January 1945
Peter Zürcher and Ernst Vonrufs, acting representatives of Swiss interests in Budapest, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, thwart Nazi plans to blow up the Pest ghetto with 70,000 Jewish inhabitants.
Lutz and his wife, along with Jewish refugees, hide in the air shelter of the abandoned British Legation on the right bank of the Danube.
January 16, 1945
Soviets liberate and occupy Budapest.
January 17, 1945
Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp is closed and evacuated, 66,000 prisoners are taken away on a series of death marches.
January 17, 1945
The Soviet Army enters and liberates Warsaw, Poland. Warsaw is completely destroyed.
January 17, 1945
Wallenberg was last seen in the company of Soviet soldiers; he said: “I do not know whether I am a guest of the Soviets or their prisoner;” he has not been seen as a free man since.
January 18, 1945
Soviet Army liberates and occupies Pest.
January 19, 1945
Soviet Army liberates Lodz, Poland.
January 27, 1945
Soviet troops enter and liberate Auschwitz concentration camp. Seven thousand remaining prisoners are free.
February 1945
The German troops in Budapest surrender to Marshall Malinovsky of the Soviet Army.
February 1, 1945
On Himmler’s orders, 2,700 Jews are taken from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and sent to Switzerland.
February 3, 1945
US Army begins the liberation of Manila in the Philippines.
February 4-11, 1945
An Allied conference is held at Yalta in the Russian Ukraine between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. It defines the postwar spheres of influence in Europe and Germany.
As a result of the conference Poland's borders are redrawn by the Allies according to the demands made by Josef Stalin during the Tehran Conference, confirmed as not negotiable at the Yalta Conference of 1945. The Polish government-in-exile is excluded from the negotiations. [Wikipedia]
February 5-7, 1945
Recha Sternbuch and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arranges with Jean Marie Musy, former Swiss president and an acquaintance of Himmler for small transport of 1,210 Jews from Terezin Concentration Camp to Switzerland. The Sternbuchs keep negotiating through Musy to the end of the war. There is an agreement to turn over four concentration camps essentially intact to the Allies in return for a USA guarantee to try the camp guards in court as opposed to shooting them on the spot. This saves the lives of large numbers of camp inmates. The Sternbuchs also negotiate the release of thousands of women from the Ravensbrück camp and release of 15,000 Jews held in Austria. [Wikipedia].
February 11, 1945
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee representative Saly Mayer meets with SS officer Kurt Becker to arrange for the release of Jews from concentration camps. 1,691 Jews are rescued from Hungary and brought to Switzerland. 17,000 other Jews are later rescued under these negotiations.
February 13, 1945
German Army surrenders in Budapest.
February 13-15, 1945
The German city of Dresden is firebombed by the British and US air forces. 60,000 are killed.
February 19, 1945
Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross operating in Germany and nephew of King Carl Gustav V of Sweden, negotiates with SS commander Heinrich Himmler and General Walter Schellenberg, Chief of Himmler’s Office of Information, for the release of thousands of Scandinavians held in Nazi concentration camps. An agreement is made to release thousands of prisoners and Jewish inmates. The Swedish and Danish Red Cross are allowed to supply food and medicine to the inmates of the camps. Iver Olson of the War Refugee Board in Stockholm is also involved in these negotiations.
February 23, 1945
Turkey declares war on Germany.
February 1945
Soviets arrest Swiss Minister Dr. Harald Feller and send him to Moscow, where he is imprisoned for more than a year in the Lubianca prison.
March 4, 1945
Finland declares war on Germany.
March 5, 1945
The Ninth US Army reaches the Rhine River near Düsseldorf.
March 12, 1945
Head of the International Committee for the Red Cross Carl Burckhardt meets with SS RSHA head Ernst Kaltenbrunner at Swiss border to plan have the Red Cross take over the administration and supervision of the concentration camps.
March 17, 1945
New Hungarian provisional government rescinds anti-Jewish laws.
March 19, 1945
Hitler issues the Nero Order (Nero-Befehl). This orders German troops to leave German cities ruined for advancing troops.
March 22, 1945
US Army crosses the Rhine River into Germany at Oppenheim.
April 1945
Himmler orders the evacuation of thousands of Jews in deadly death marches away from the concentration camps.
Bernadotte’s negotiations with Himmler are successful. He secures the release of over 400 Danish Jews imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Later, he arranges for the release of thousands of women from the Ravensbrück and Bergen Belsen concentration camps. He arranges for busses, converted to ambulances, known as the “white busses,” to take them from the camps. The refugees are transported safely to Sweden.
April 1945
US and British troops liberate the concentration camps at Buchenwald, Dachau, Nordhausen, Bergen-Belsen and other camps.
April 1, 1945
US Army lands on the island of Okinawa, in the Pacific.
April 2, 1945
Soviets launch Vienna Offensive against the German army in the Austrian capital city.
April 2, 1945
German armies are encircled in the Ruhr Pocket.
April 2, 1945
Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic, is overrun by Soviet forces.
April 4, 1945
German Army withdraws from Hungary.
April 4, 1945
Ohrdruf concentration camp is liberated by the US Army.
April 7, 1945
The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk in the waters off of Okinawa, this the Japanese last major naval operation.
April 9, 1945
New Allied offensive in Italy begins. It is called the Gothic Line campaign.
April 9, 1945
SS begins evacuating prisoners from Mauthausen.
April 10, 1945
US Army captures Hanover, Germany.
April 11, 1945
US troops reach the Elbe River, near Wittenberg.
April 11, 1945
Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated by the US Army.
April 12, 1945
US President Franklin Roosevelt dies. Harry Truman becomes the new President.
April 12, 1945
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton visit the liberated Ohrdruf camp. Eisenhower orders troops and local Germans to witness the atrocities. Eisenhower also encourages the press to cover the liberation of the camps.
April 13, 1945
Soviet Army enters and liberates Vienna, Austria.
April 13, 1945
Gardelegen Massacre takes place. More than 1000 slave laborers are closed in a barn which is was set on fire. It was one of the last massacres on civil population perpetrated by Germans.
April 14, 1945
Massive firebombing of Tokyo by U.S. Army Air Force.
April 15, 1945
British soldiers liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
April 15, 1945
Red Cross transfers 413 Danish Jews from Czechoslovakia to Sweden.
April 16, 1945
The Soviet Army launches its last assault on Berlin.
April 19, 1945
The Soviet Army advances towards Berlin and soon reaches the suburbs.
April 19, 1945
In Italy Allied Armies continue their advance toward the Po Valley.
April 19, 1945
Danish Red Cross volunteers help with the release of surviving inmates at the Neuengamme concentration camp, who are brought safely to Denmark.
April 20, 1945
Himmler meets with Swedish diplomat Norbert Masur to arrange to free 7,000 women from Ravensbrück. More than half of them is Jewish.
April 21, 1946
Soviet forces under General Georgie Zhukov's launch assaults on the German forces in and around Berlin in the opening stages of the Battle of Berlin.
April 23, 1945
US Army liberates Flossenberg concentration camp.
April 25, 1945
US and Soviet troops link up at Torgau, Germany, on the Elbe River.
April 25, 1945
The United Nations meeting in San Francisco, California, drafts charter of the United Nations.
April 27, 1945
Sachsenhausen concentration camp is liberated by the Soviet Army.
April 27, 1945
The Landsberg-Kaufering concentration camps are liberated by the 36th Division of the US Army.
April 28, 1945
Italian partisans kill Mussolini as he tries to escape to Switzerland.
April 29, 1945
The German Army unconditionally surrenders to the Allies in Italy.
April 29, 1945
The Soviet Army occupies Slovakia.
April 29, 1945
In the day before he commits suicide, Hitler dictates his last will and testament. In it, he exhorts “the government and the people to uphold the race laws to limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoners of all nations, international Jewry.”
Hitler appoints Admiral Karl Donitz to be his successor.
April 29, 1945
Dachau concentration camp is liberated by the 42nd and 45th US Divisions of the 7th US Army.
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
April 30, 1945
S Army captures Munich, Germany.
April 30, 1945
The Soviet Army captures the old German Reichstag building in Berlin.
April 30, 1945
The Soviet Army liberates Ravensbrück concentration camp. They find 3,500 women there.
May 1, 1945
The Soviet Army liberates the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland.
May 2, 1945
Berlin falls to the Soviet Army. The German troops defending Berlin surrender.
May 4, 1945
German forces Denmark, Northern Germany and The Netherlands surrender to British Commander Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
May 4, 1945
The German occupying forces in the Netherlands and Denmark surrender.
May 4, 1945
Soviet Army liberates concentration camp in Oranienberg.
May 4, 1945
The Red Cross takes over concentration camp at Theresienstadt.
May 5, 1945
Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated by the US Eleventh Armored Division.
May 5, 1945
The German Army in Norway surrenders.
May 5, 1945
The 71st Division of the US Army liberates the Gunskirchen concentration camp in Austria.
May 6, 1945
The Eleventh Armored Division of the US Army liberates the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria.
May 8, 1945
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day): German General Alfred Jodl surrenders at Eisenhower’s headquarters, the end of the Third Reich.
The German army in northeast Germany surrenders to Field Marshal Montgomery.
55 million people are dead. Nearly half are civilians.
More than six million Jews and five million others have been murdered. Two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe is murdered.
90% of the Jewish Polish population has been murdered. One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in The Holocaust, made up half of all Poles killed during the war. The number of Polish Jews who survive the Holocaust is difficult to ascertain. The majority of Polish Jewish survivors were individuals who were able to find refuge in the territories of Soviet Union that were not occupied by Germans and thus safe from the Holocaust. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 800,000 Polish Jews survive the war, out of which between 50,000 and 100,000 were survivors from occupied Poland, and the remainder, survivors who made it abroad (mostly to the Soviet Union). [Wikipedia]
However, in more than half of the countries in Europe, 50% or more of the population of Jews survives. These include the countries of Denmark, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Germany and Austria.
The Soviet Army liberates Grossrosen concentration camp.
The US Army captures Hermann Göring.
Jewish returnees to Denmark have their property, including houses, businesses and money, returned to them. All Jews are granted the sum of $4,505 Kroner to help rebuild their lives.
May 9, 1945
Prague, Czechoslovakia, is liberated by the Soviet Army.
May 10, 1945
The German Army in Czechoslovakia surrenders to the Soviet Army.
May 23, 1945
SS chief Himmler is arrested by a British Army unit. Later that day, he commits suicide by taking a cyanide capsule.
May 1945
Pio Perucchi dies at the age of 75 in Lugano, Switzerland.
June 18-21, 1945
The Trial of the Sixteen is a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of various forms of 'illegal activity' against the Red Army. The verdict was issued on 21 June, with most of the defendants coerced into pleading guilty by the NKVD.
July 6, 1945
The United Kingdom and the USA withdrew support for the legitimate Polish government in exile, and all its agendas in Poland. Soviet and Polish Communist repressions aimed at former members of the Polish Secret State and the Armia Krajowa lasted well into the 1960s. [Wikipedia]
July 16, 1945
First detonation of an atomic bomb in New Mexico. The bomb in code-named “Trinity.”
July 17-August 2, 1945
A conference is convened in Potsdam, Germany, between Stalin, Churchill (Attlee), and President Truman.
August 6, 1945
Americans detonate atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. It destroys two-thirds of the city.
August 8, 1945
The victorious Allied powers meet and develop an outline for an International Military Tribunal to try German war criminals.
August 8, 1945
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Japanese occupied Manchuria.
August 9, 1945
Americans detonate atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. It destroys half of the city.
August 11, 1945
Anti-Jewish riots in Crackow, Poland.
August 12, 1945
The Soviet Army occupies Japanese-held North Korea.
August 13, 1945
The World Zionist Congress demands the admission of one million Jewish refugees to Palestine.
August 14, 1945
Japanese Emperor Hirohito accepts Allied surrender terms. He tells his people to accept the terms and not to resist the occupation.
August 15, 1945
V-J Day: Victory over Japan proclaimed.
Marshal Philippe Pétain, former head of the Vichy government, is convicted in a French court of treason and is sentenced to death. His sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment.
August 26, 1945
British Labor Party wins in a landslide.
August 28, 1945
First US troops land in Japan to prepare for surrender and occupation.
September 2, 1945
Victory in Japan (V-J Day). Japanese diplomats and soldiers surrender at MacArthur’s headquarters aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. End of World War II.
More than 55 million people have been killed in the deadliest war in history. For the first time in history, more civilians are killed than soldiers.
Europe and Japan are in ruins.
September 20, 1945
The Jewish Agency for Palestine submits a claim against Germany for war crimes committed against the Jewish people.
October 9, 1945
Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of France in Vichy, is convicted in a French court of treason. He is sentenced to death.
October 24, 1945
The United Nations comes into formal existence after its charter is ratified in New York City.
November 1945
Former Secretary of State Cordell Hull is awarded Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in creating the United Nations.
November 13, 1945
Charles de Gaulle is elected President of France.
November 15 – December 14, 1945
Dachau trials are conducted at the site of the former concentration camp. Forty former guards and administrators are tried. Many are sentenced to death.
November 22, 1945 – August 31, 1946
Nazi war leaders are put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for crimes against humanity. They are tried by the International Military Tribunal (IMT). The IMT rules that obedience to superiors’ orders is insufficient defense for crimes against humanity. The defendants include Hermann Göring, Rudolph Hess, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Julius Streicher, Joachim von Ribbentrop, General Wilhelm Keitel, General Alfred Jodl, Albert Speer, Admiral Karl Donitz and others. They are charged with: 1) crimes against the peace, 2) war crimes, 3) crimes against humanity, and 4) conspiracy to commit any of these crimes. The military tribunal finds 12 of the defendants guilty and sentences them to death. Seven others receive prison terms and three are acquitted.
Late 1945
US diplomat Hiram Bingham resigns from US Foreign Service in protest for the US government failing to thwart Nazis’ activities in South America during and after the war.
1945-1950
It is estimated that 250,000-350,000 Jews are liberated from the concentration camps. 1.6 million come out of hiding.
Following World War II Poland becomes a satellite state of the Soviet Union, with its eastern regions annexed to the Union, and its western borders expanded to include formerly German territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This forced millions to relocate. Jewish survivors returning to their homes in Poland discover that it practically impossible to reconstruct their pre-war lives. Due to the border shifts, some Polish Jews realize that their homes are now in the Soviet Union. In other cases, the returning survivors are German Jews whose homes are now under Polish jurisdiction. Jewish communities and Jewish life as it had existed was gone, and Jews who somehow survived the Holocaust often discover that their homes have been looted or destroyed. [Wikipedia]
The first wave of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust emigrate to Palestine (142,000), the United States (72,000), Canada (16,000), Belgium (8,000), and other places (10,000), including Central and South America and Australia. A very few stay in Europe.
In post-war Poland, many of the approximately 200,000 Jewish survivors registered at Central Committee of Polish Jews or CKŻP (of whom 136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union) left the Polish People’s Republic for the new State of Israel, North America or South America. Their departure is hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions, post-war violence and the hostility of the Communist Party to both religion and private enterprise. [Wikipedia]
Return to Chronology of Jewish History - Parts 1-9
Updated November 23, 2021