Germany - 1941 (I)In the early fall of 1940, my father bought a brand-new, 1941 Plymouth, for about $800-900. As a young lad, I thought it was the most beautiful machine I had ever seen. I rode with my father to the hospital in that 1941 Plymouth to bring home my mother and my brand-new sister.
It was a wonderful time and so far as I was concerned, all was well with the world. I had no idea, and couldn't have comprehended if I had known, that on the other side of the planet, children my age were being beaten in the streets, separated from their parents and siblings, freezing to death on trains, gassed to death in tiled showers - just because they were Jews.
By the end of 1940, some 100,000 of Germany's Jews had been murdered. That number would rise exponentially in 1941 as mass murder of Jews became official German state policy.
In 1941, about one million Jews would lose their lives.
This was the year of Babi Yar, "a ravine-filled area located in northwestern Kiev ... Ukraine's capital city." A German eyewitness tells how "the Germans, aided and abetted by their Ukrainian collaborators, rounded up [33,771 Jews in Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941], and forced them to strip, leave their valuables behind, and enter 'a ravine that was about 150 meters long, 30 meters wide, and a good 15 meters deep."
The eyewitness, a truck driver for the Germans, said "no distinction was made between men, women and children." And when they went down into the ravine, they were made to lie down on top of those already shot. "This all happened very quickly. The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun at the spot where he was lying."
The truck driver, Fritz Hofer, said the Jews approached Babi Yar thinking they were being resettled. Then it was too late.
* 1941 - A Roman Catholic priest, Maximilian Kolbe, a prisoner at Auschwitz, offers to take the place of a condemned non-Jewish inmate. Kolbe dies of a phenol injection.
* January - The Nazis deny heating fuel to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and many freeze to death.
* January 9 - Hitler sets aside his plan to invade England.
* January 21-24 - Iron Guard Legionnaires in Romania launch a coup d'etat. Violence against Jews erupts and thousands of Jews are beaten and more than 120 are killed.
* January 22 - In Bulgaria a law is passed requiring Jews to give up public positions and forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers and other professionals to give up their jobs. A tax is also imposed on Jewish businesses and homes.
* January 30 - On this, Hitler's 8th anniversary as chancellor, he repeats his plan to destroy all the Jews in Europe.
* January 31 - 3,000 Jewish deportees arrive at the Warsaw Ghetto. In early 1941, the population of the Warsaw Ghetto grows to 400,000. Jews are limited to 183 calories per day (Germans get 2310 a day; foreigners 1790; Poles 934).
* January - August - In the Warsaw and Lodz Ghettos, 18,000 Jews die of starvation.
* February - The ration of daily bread for Jews is reduced to 3 ounces.
* February 6 - Erwin Rommel is given command of the German Afrika Korps in North Africa.
* February 19 - German police entering an ice cream parlor in Amsterdam, Holland, are sprayed with ammonia.
* February 22-23 - In response to the ammonia spraying, SS troops enter the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam. 400 Jews are arrested, beaten, and some are deported to Buchenwald, where they are tortured to death. Others are sent to Mauthausen, Austria where most will be tortured and then executed in the camp's stone quarry.
February 25 - Thousands of Dutch citizens participate in a general strike to protest the deportation of Duth Jews.
* March - Hitler tells his generals to conduct an "unmerciful" and "unrelenting" war against the Soviet Union.
* March 3 - A Jewish Ghetto is set up in Krakow, Poland. One of the owners of the ice cream store in Amsterdam is executed by a German firing squad.
* March 7 - Jews in Upper Silesia (Poland) are sent to German mines to work.
* Spring - Another ghetto is established in Kielce, Poland. German troops execute 250 Jews who were carrying out acts of sabotage. Hungarian troops and German civilians randomly murder 250 Jews and 250 Serbs in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Many Yugoslavian Jews join up with the anti-Nazi partisans led by Josip Broz (Tito).
* March 25 - Yugoslavia joins the Axis countries.
* March 29 - The anti-Semitic General Commission on Jewish Affairs is established in France.
* Late March - Another ghetto is set up in Lublin, Poland.
* April 1 - A pro-Nazi government is established in Iraq under Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.
* April 2 - Count Pal Telecki, the Hungarian Premier, commits suicide rather than cooperate with the Nazis.
* April 6 - The Germans invade Greece and Yugoslavia. Jews in both countries are driven from their homes.
* April 16 - Germans, along with local Muslims, loot and destroy the main synagogue in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Aron Beckerman becomes the first Jew to be shot by the Germans for resistance in France.
* April 17 - A Jewish policeman in Warsaw is bayoneted and shot by German soldiers after asking a soldier to return a sack of potatoes he had taken from a Jewish woman.
* April 18 - Yugoslavia surrenders to the Germans.
* April 21 - A German sentry orders a mentally ill woman to dance in the Lodz Ghetto. She complies. He then shoots her in the head.
* April 27 - Germany conquers Greece.
* May - Jews who fought against Germany in the French Foreign Legion are deported to slave-labor camps in the Sahara to build railroads. In Bucharest, Romania, 120 Jews are killed in the streets. In Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and businesses are destroyed.
* May 10 - Rudolf Hess, flies to Scotland (without permission) where he intends to meet with Winston Churchill and try to negotiate an end to the Anglo-German war. He is captured and put in prison.
* May 14 - Some 4,000 Jews are deported from Paris, most to a camp at Pithiviers, France.
* May 15 - Polish Jews who have traveled on a sealed train from a POW camp to Konskowola are murdered after the Nazis discover four of the POW's have escaped.
* May 20 - In France, Jews are forbidden to engage in wholesale or retail trades; they cannot own banks, hotels, or restaurants.
In Berlin, the Central Office of Emigration notifies all German consulates that Hermann Goring has banned emigration of Jews from France and all other occupied territories. In this directive, Goring is quoted as discussing the "doubtless imminent final solution," which is the first time any official mention has been made of the Nazi's plans to kill all the Jews in Europe.
1 comment:
I knew what was happening, although not the details. I was in grade school and refugees from Germany were in our classes, in Manhattan. I was the “helper” for Eric, a German boy of my age. He was not Jewish but his dad was. He told stories of Jews being beaten and store windows broken. His mother’s family was Nazis and helped them escape to the US. They were very poor and spoke no English. Eric and I became good friends for many years. Walter Winchell wrote and spoke of terrible things happening to Jews in Germany. I believe our government knew from the beginning but did nothing. Jews were expendable! I think they still are in most parts of the world. I believe that if Israel were not a Jewish state, it would have been accepted long ago.
The world knew, but sat by. Only Bulgaria protected its Jewish citizens and refused to go along with the Nazi racial laws, even though they were allied with Germany! Millions could have been saved but no one wanted large numbers of Jews coming to their lands. Church leaders found excuses or ignored the Holocaust, to their shame. Leaders said nothing, while millions died. 52 million died during WW2 on all sides. If the world had spoken out, who knows how many of the 52 would have lived.
Bob Poris
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