Due to the length of the time line below, we recommend viewing this page on a computer or tablet rather than on a mobile (cell) phone.
| 1933 | 30 January | Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, is appointed as Chancellor [= Prime Minister] of Germany |
| 27 February | An arsonist sets fire to the Reichstag [Germany’s Parliament House] leading to declaration of a state of emergency | |
| 5 March | Reichstag [parliament] elections – Nazis receive 44% of the vote | |
| 22 March | The first Nazi concentration camp (Dachau) is established | |
| 24 March | Enabling Act (passed in consequence of the Reichstag fire) – Hitler is given emergency powers | |
| 1 April | Public boycott of Jewish businesses | |
| 7 April | Reform of the civil service – restrictions on Jews being employed as civil servants | |
| 21 April | Shechitah (Jewish ritual slaughter of meat) banned – kosher meat no longer legally available | |
| 25 April | Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning – quotas set limiting Jews to 1.5% of all high school and university places | |
| 10 May | Thousands of ‘degenerate’ books by Jewish authors are publicly burned | |
| 14 July | Germany declared a one-party state (> political parties other than the Nazi Party are not allowed to operate) | |
| 14 July | Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe are stripped of their German citizenship | |
| 13 September | Compulsory teaching of Nazi racial in theory starts in schools | |
| 22 September | Reich Chamber of Culture Law – persons are allowed to work professionally in the arts, media, literature, theatre or music only if they belong to the relevant ‘chamber’ but all Jews are denied chamber membership | |
| October | Henceforth Jewish doctors are allowed to treat only Jewish patients; Jews forbidden to own land | |
| 1934 | 2 August | President Hindenburg dies > Hitler effectively has absolute power |
| 1935 | 31 May | Jews are forbidden to serve in the German Army (general conscription – compulsory military service – was already in effect for men) |
| 15 September | Nuremburg Laws – Jews forbidden to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans, Jews forbidden to employ Aryan females under 45 years old, Jews stripped of German citizenship | |
| 14 November | Additions made to the Nuremburg Laws – all remaining Jewish public servants dismissed, Jews no longer entitled to vote | |
| 1937 | January | Jews banned from the professions of dentistry, teaching and accounting |
| 1938 | 13 March | The Anschluss – Austria is annexed by Germany and all German anti-Jewish measures come into effect in Austria |
| June | Failure of the Evian Conference in France – no countries are willing to take Jewish refugees from Germany | |
| 6 July | Further restrictions on which occupations Jews may undertake | |
| 27 September | Jews banned from working as lawyers, except for a small number allowed to work for Jewish clients only | |
| 30 September | Munich Agreement – England agrees to allow Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia | |
| 5 October | All Jews have the letter ‘J’ added to their passports to clearly identify them as Jewish | |
| 6 October | Germany annexes the Sudetenland (another part of Czechoslovakia), a clear breach of the Munich Agreement | |
| 28 October | 17,000 Jews holding Polish passports are forcibly deported from Germany and abandoned at the Polish border (Poland refused to accept them back, thus stranding them with nowhere to go) | |
| 7 November | In desperation, the son of stranded deported Polish Jews shoots a Nazi official in Paris to call attention to the plight of his parents and others. The official dies on 9 November, triggering Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass), a large-scale pogrom across Germany. | |
| 15 November | Jewish children are banned from attending Jewish schools | |
| 1939 | 15 March | Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia (the last remaining parts of Czechoslovakia not under German rule) |
| 1 September | Germany invades Poland | |
| 3 September | Great Britain and assorted allied countries declare war on Germany > the start of the 2nd World War | |
| September | Poland is conquered by Germany in less than 4 weeks and the first ghettos are established in Poland. German Jews are forbidden to own radios. | |
| 23 November | All Jews in Poland are ordered to wear the Jewish badge (yellow star) making them readily identifiable as Jews | |
| 2 December | The Nazis start using gas vans to kill mental patients – the technology will later be applied to death camps | |
| 1940 | January | Polish Jewish youth movements begin the first underground movements against the Germans |
| 5 May | Germany invades Belgium and the Netherlands | |
| 26 May | Facing defeat, the Allies evacuate their forces via Dunkirk | |
| May | The concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland is established | |
| June | Germany occupies most of France and Paris (the capital city of Paris) falls on 14 June | |
| 14 July | The Vichy government is formed and controls southern France; it collaborates with Germany. | |
| October | The Vichy government passes anti-Jewish laws. The Warsaw ghetto is established. | |
| 16 November | The Warsaw ghetto is sealed (Jews in it are no longer able to leave) | |
| 1941 | 1 March | Construction of Auschwitz II (Birkenau Death Camp) begins |
| June | ‘Operation Barbarossa‘ – Germany invades the Soviet Union. German Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) begin mass executions by shooting in what had been Soviet-occupied Poland. | |
| July | Einsatzgruppen move into Lithuania (which also has a high Jewish population). 160,000 Romanian Jews are killed with the assistance of Romanian troops. | |
| 31 July | Goering orders Heydrich to prepare a plan for the ‘Final Solution’ of the ‘Jewish Question’. | |
| 3 September | The first experimental gassings are conducted at Auschwitz-Birkenau. | |
| 19 September | German Jews are ordered to wear the Jewish Star when out in public | |
| October | The Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp starts operation | |
| 15 October | German & Austrian Jews start being deported to ghettos in Eastern Europe | |
| December | Japan attacks Pearl Harbour; USA declares war on Japan; Germany & Italy declare war on USA. | |
| 1942 | 14 January | Dutch Jews start to be rounded up and deported |
| January | Hitler states “the war will end with the complete annihilation of the Jews.” | |
| 20 January | Wannsee Conference to plan the destruction of European Jewry on an industrial scale | |
| early 1942 | Einsatzgruppen operate in the Crimea. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Jews are killed in newly established death camps throughout eastern Europe. | |
| 28 March | The deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz begins | |
| June | A second gas chamber starts operating at Auschwitz. The New York Times reports that over 1 million Jews have been killed, but there is wide-spread disbelief and incredulity. | |
| July | The first medical experiments take place at Auschwitz. | |
| November | The US State Department confirms the existence of Nazi death camps and the deaths of 2 million Jews so far | |
| 1943 | March | A second crematorium starts operating at Auschwitz-Birkenau. |
| 19 April | The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins; 7,000 Jews will be killed in street fighting resisting German troops | |
| 21 June | Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in occupied Soviet territory | |
| June | Yet more crematoria are built at Auschwitz-Birkenau and put into operation | |
| October | The deportation of Danish Jews is ordered, but the Danish underground successfully helps most to escape to neutral Sweden. | |
| 1944 | 18 March | German troops enter Hungary, setting the stage for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz |
| 15 May | Hungarian Jews start being deported to Auschwitz | |
| July | The Russians liberate the Majdanek death camp (in Poland) | |
| 23 August | Romania (a German ally) surrenders to the USSR (Russia) | |
| 7 October | The Sonderkommando at Auschwitz revolt. | |
| October | Prisoners at Auschwitz revolt; 1 crematorium is blown up. | |
| 25 November | Gassings at Auschwitz stop. Germans start trying to hide evidence of the death camps. Prisoners are sent into German territory. | |
| 1945 | mid-January | The Soviets relieve Warsaw and part of Budapest. |
| 18 January | The Germans abandon Auschwitz and force surviving prisoners who are not bed-ridden on a death march to Germany | |
| 27 January | The Soviets liberate Auschwitz, finding only 7,600 survivors. | |
| April | The Americans liberate Buchenwald concentration camp; the British liberate Bergen-Belsen. The Allies become aware of the full horror of the Holocaust. | |
| 25 April | Advancing American and Soviet troops meet at the River Elbe. | |
| 30 April | Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin. | |
| 7 May | Germany surrenders | |
| 8 May | VE (Victory in Europe) Day – the war in Europe is over (the war against Japan continued until VJ Day on 2 September). |
For links to other websites with reliable information about the Holocaust, please see our web page The Holocaust.
