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During World War II, Slovene general Leon Rupnik collaborated with the forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Rupnik was appointed president of the Provincial Government of the German-occupied Province of Ljubljana in 1943. He was convicted of treason and executed in 1946. In 2020, his sentence was annulled on a technicality.
The Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. Learn about the Axis invasion and partition, collaboration, and the fate of Jewish people living in Yugoslavia.
Learn about some key dates in the life of Adolf Hitler, one of Europe's most ruthless dictators, who led the Nazis from 1921 and Germany from 1933-45.
By September 1939, over half of German Jews had emigrated. WWII would accelerate the persecution, deportation, and later, mass murder, of the remainder of Germany's Jews.
Franz Werfel was an Austrian poet, modernist playwright, and novelist. Several of his works were burned during the Nazi book burnings of 1933. Learn more.
The search for refuge frames both the years before the Holocaust and its aftermath. Learn about obstacles refugees faced when searching for safe havens.
Kindertransport refers to a series of rescue efforts between 1938 and 1940 that brought thousands of refugee children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany.
Valtr was the fourth of six children born to Jewish parents in a small Moravian town, where his father ran a dry-goods and clothing store. The Krakauers spoke both Czech and German at home. Valtr attended German-language schools and also played soccer for the Maccabi Jewish team. After graduating from secondary school, Valtr enrolled in a fashion-design school in the city of Brno. 1933-39: In Brno, Valtr founded a factory that produced ready-made clothes. He closely followed the rise of Nazism in Germany…
Learn about the Kovno ghetto diary and other documents Avraham Tory saved in a secret archive that documented life in the ghetto.
Martha and Waitstill Sharp, American Unitarian aide workers, helped thousands of Jews, intellectuals, and children in Prague, Lisbon, and southern France in 1939–1940.
Johann was born to Catholic parents in the part of Austria known as Carinthia, where he was raised on the family farm. Johann enjoyed acting and belonged to a theater group in nearby Sankt Martin, which also happened to have a Jehovah's Witness congregation. He became a Jehovah's Witness during the late 1920s, actively preaching in the district around Sankt Martin. 1933-39: Johann continued to do missionary work for the Jehovah's Witnesses even after this was banned by the Austrian government in 1936. The…
Frances Perkins was FDR's secretary of labor. Learn about her role in the rescue of European Jews whose lives were threatened by the Nazi regime.
Nazi authorities established the Lodz ghetto in 1940. Learn about living conditions and forced labor in the ghetto, as well as deportations to and from there.
Roma (Gypsies) were persecuted in Europe before and during World War II. This history is well documented in archives throughout Europe and the United States. Learn more.
Before the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, Europe had a richly diverse set of Jewish cultures. Learn more about the Jewish population of Europe.
US radio and TV journalist Edward R. Murrow reported live from London during the Blitz; he also broadcast the first eyewitness account of the liberation of Buchenwald.
The Nazi Euthanasia Program, codenamed Aktion "T4," was the systematic murder of institutionalized people with disabilities. Read about Nazi “euthanasia.”
After the devastation of WWI, the victorious western powers imposed a series of treaties upon the defeated nations. Learn about the treaties and their impact.
Antisemitism: hostility toward or hatred of Jews as a religious or ethnic group, often accompanied by social, economic, or political discrimination. Appellplatz: German word for roll call square where prisoners were forced to assemble. Aryan: Term used in Nazi Germany to refer to non-Jewish and non-Roma (Gypsy) Caucasians. Northern Europeans with especially "Nordic" features such as blonde hair and blue eyes were considered by so-called race scientists to be the most superior of Aryans, members of a…
The three principal partners in the Axis alliance were Germany, Italy, and Japan. Learn more about the Axis powers in WW2.
Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion and the radicalization of Nazi anti-Jewish policies triggered a mass exodus. Learn about the US and the refugee crisis of 1938–41.
Leo was the oldest child and only son of Polish immigrants in Vienna. His father, a tailor and amateur Yiddish actor, died of an illness in 1930 when Leo was 9. His mother supported the family by working as an embroiderer; Leo helped out by looking after his two younger sisters. They lived in one of Vienna's large Jewish districts on the east side of the Danube Canal. 1933-39: Anti-Jewish sentiment escalated after Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Jewish men, including some of Leo's uncles and neighbors,…
Charged with managing the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and killing centers, Adolf Eichmann was a key figure in the "Final Solution."
Learn about conditions and the treatment of prisoners in Ravensbrück, the largest concentration camp for women in the German Reich.
Learn about the provisions and impact of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, including the "War Guilt Clause" which held Germany responsible for starting World War I.
Listing of the 24 leading Nazi officials indicted at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Learn about the defendants and the charges against them.
Of the millions of children who suffered persecution at the hands of the Nazis and their Axis partners, a small number wrote diaries and journals that have survived.
World War II was the largest and most destructive conflict in history. Learn about key WWII dates in this timeline of events, including when WW2 started and ended.
Doriane Kurz’s parents, Klara and Emil Meilech Kurz, settled in Vienna, where her father ran a thriving branch of the family's multinational optical frames business. 1933-39: Doriane was born in Vienna just two years before the Germans annexed Austria in March 1938. Her family fled to the Netherlands soon after the annexation. The Kurz family moved to the town of Maastricht where a branch of the Kurz Brothers' optical frames business was located. Doriane attended nursery school in Maastricht, but the…
The "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe, was a core goal of Adolf Hitler and the culmination of German policy under Nazi rule.
Explore key dates in the history of the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto, which served multiple purposes during its existence from 1941-45.
Read a detailed timeline of the Holocaust and World War II. Learn about key dates and events from 1933-45 as Nazi antisemitic policies became more radical.
The German invasion of Poland in the fall of 1939 triggered WWII. Learn more about key dates and events, causes, and related Holocaust history.
Ida, born Ida Kohn, was the oldest of four children born to a Jewish family in the village of Hostoun, near Prague. Her father owned a grocery store in the village, and also recorded the birth, death and marriage certificates in the Jewish community. In 1912 Ida married Josef Edelstein and they moved to Vienna. By 1920 the couple had a son, Wilhelm, and a daughter, Alice. 1933-39: In March 1938 the Germans annexed Austria. In the next few weeks, Ida, along with other Jews, was forced to scrub sidewalks.…
Learn about the voyages of the ships Orduña, Flandre, and Orinoco in May 1939, carrying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and seeking safety in Cuba.
Adolf Hitler came to power with the goal of establishing a new racial order in Europe dominated by the German “master race.” This goal drove Nazi foreign policy. Learn more
German forces occupied Riga, Latvia in July 1941. Learn more about the establishment of the Riga ghetto, mass shootings of Jews, and Jewish resistance.
In July 1938, 32 nations met in Evian, France, to discuss immigration policies for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Learn how these discussions impacted Jewish lives.
At the July 1938 Evian Conference, delegates from nations and organizations discussed the issue of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. Learn more
Nicholas Winton organized a rescue operation that brought hundreds of children, mostly Jewish, from Czechoslovakia to safety in Great Britain before the outbreak of WWII.
Based on their ideas about race, the Nazis mass murdered people with disabilities; people perceived as threats in occupied Poland; and Jewish people. Learn more.
Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann helped save a Jewish family in the heart of Nazi Germany. Helmy was the first Arab recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.
On November 9–10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence. This became known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass." Learn more
Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Otto grew up in a city well known for its musical tradition. The younger of two children, Otto began studying the piano at age 10. After entering the Vienna Conservatory of Music, he gave his first concert at age 14. Encouraged by Maestro Bruno Walter, he hoped to become a conductor and concert pianist. 1933-39: After Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, Otto was kicked out of the Vienna Conservatory. One night, two men ordered him to go with them to a…
The Germans annexed Austria in March 1938. In 1939, Hans fled first to Hungary and then to Italy. He and his parents were interned in various towns. Hans's father became ill and died in 1940. In 1943, Hans and his mother were warned of German plans to deport Jews from Italy to Poland. They moved to smaller towns until liberation by the British in August 1943. Hans worked as an interpreter for the Allies until 1945, when he worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and helped resettle…
Explore a timeline of key events in the history of the Auschwitz camp complex in German-occupied Poland.
The Nazis used public humiliation tactics to degrade their victims and to reinforce Nazi racial ideology for German citizens and populations under Nazi occupation.
Germany started World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939, by invading Poland. War would continue until 1945. Learn more about key events in the history of WWII.
With help from allies and collaborators, German authorities deported Jews from across Europe to killing centers. The vast majority were gassed almost immediately after their arrival in the killing centers.
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