The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget)

Germany 1940 (I)

(The photo pictures Jewish children used by the Nazis in medical experiments.)

By 1940, the writing was on the wall, so to speak, for the Jews. Still, some clung to the hope that they could find salvation by work -- that if they became useful, even essential, to the Germans, they would be spared.

Although this concept bought them some time, it was not to be. Nazi "logic" said "that all racial threats to German purity and power could not be tolerated and must be removed."

Nowhere did this become more evident that in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, where 164,000 Jews were crammed into 1.54 square miles. When the ghetto was sealed by barbed wire, the Jews realized that so far as the Nazis were concerned, they were "fundamentally unwanted creatures."

From that point, there was no question the Jews would be murdered en masse.

Many have wondered how the Germans could become so brutal and barbaric, given their religious and cultural background. For example, Rudolf Hoss, who became commander of Auschwitz in May of 1940, was from a devout Catholic family who had hoped he would become a priest. Instead Hoss joined the SS in 1934 and rose steadily in that bureaucracy.

His work at Auschwitz involved murdering more than three and a half million people. His superiors said he was "a true pioneer in his field." But Hoss "insisted ... he 'never personally hated the Jews.'" He was just doing his duty as they were "enemies of the German people."

Even as he perfected the mass-execution process through more effective gassing techniques, Hoss lamented the long hours he had to work, and complained he didn't have enough time to play with his children.


In June of 1940, the Nazis marched into Paris, through the Arch de Triomphe and down the Champs de Elysses. For the 100,000 plus Jews in Paris, this spelled disaster. Quite quickly, the Nazis, through a census system, located all the Jews in the city. They were ordered to wear yellow star armbands and were given a nighttime curfew. Many were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

How were the Nazis able to so quickly and effectively identify 100,000 people within the city of Paris? They were assisted by the American company, International Business Machines, and IBM's Hollerith machine.


1940 - Six euthanasia centers are established in Germany to murder Jews, the mentally ill, the aged, those with physical ailments, and the handicapped.

Estonia is annexed by the Soviet Union.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt turns over the problem of Jewish immigration into the United States to the anti-Semite Assistant Secretary of State, Breckenridge Long. Long is unhappy to think of more Jews coming into the United States.

Great Britain's secretary of state for war, Leslie Hore-Belisha, a Jew, resigns because of the anti-Semitic feelings of many in the British government. Lord Halifax and Alexander Cadogan were pleased wtih the resignation saying "Jew control of our propaganda would be [a] major disaster."

* January 6 - In Warsaw, Jews have no heat and are forced to burn Jewish books for fuel.

* Januar 12 - SS troops and Gestapo nasties shoot to death 300 inmates of an insane asylum.

* January 18-25 - Again, in Warsaw, 255 Polish Jews are arrested at random, taken into the woods and shot.

* February 8 - The Jewish ghetto at Lodz is established.

Spring - German gypsies are deported from western and northwestern Germany.

* April - Germany invades Denmark and Norway. The Norwegians and Danes try to keep the Germans from harming Jews.

* April 1 - Thousands of Jewish refugees find a haven in Shanghai, China.

* April 8-11 - In the Katyn Forest close to Smolensk, Russia, 26,000 Polish officers are massacred by the Soviets.

* April 23 - In Stuthof, Poland, captive Jews are forced to jump into open latrines. A number drown and others are beaten to death.

* April 27 - In England, H. F. Downie, an official with the British Foreign Office, says that Jews are "enemies just as the Germans are, but in a more insidious way." He goes on to claim that Nazis and Jews "are linked together by secret and evil bonds."

* April 29 - The Lodz ghetto is sealed off.

* May 10 - The Germans invade Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Winston Churchill becomes the British Prime Minister.

The poet, T.S. Eliot writes that "Jews are the modern world's foremost 'Forces of Evil.' He claims that they have 'made the modern world vile.'"

* May 15 - In Holland, thousands of Jews from several countries find themselves trapped behind German lines. The Dutch Army surrenders.

* May 16 - A Nazi murder spree called Extraordinary Pacification Operation is set into motion, the purpose of which is to do away with Polish intellectuals.

* May 20 - The Auschwitz concentration camp gets up and running.

* May 27 - German troops murder 100 British POWs at Le Paradis, France.

* May 28 - Belgium surrenders.

* May 1940 - March 1941 - 40,000 Jews are deported from Krakow, Poland.

* June 4 - A concentration camp is established at Neuengamme, Germany. British and French troops are evacuated at Dunkerque, France.

* June 10 - Italy enters the war as "a junior ally to Germany."

* June 14 - The first inmates, including non-Jewish Poles, such as teachers and priests, arrive at Auschwitz. Paris falls to the Nazis.

* June 22 - France surrenders and signs an armistice with Germany.

* June 26 - The anti-Semite US Assistant Secretary of State, Breckinridge Long tries to stop the granting of visas to Jews who want to come to the U.S. He orders American consuls "to put every obstacle in the way [to] postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of visas."

More to follow