Here is a list of key dates and anniversaries that you may want to consider when planning your projects or events. Theming your projects or events around different anniversaries can help to guide your aims and introduce your audience to aspects of the Holocaust they may not have had the opportunity to learn about before.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration and extermination camp in Oświęcim in German-occupied Poland. It consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I, which predominantly held Polish political prisoners; Auschwitz II (Birkenau), which served as an extermination camp for Jews from across Europe as well as a slave labour camp for Poles, Roma and the minority of Jews who were selected to work on arrival; Auschwitz III (Monowitz), a labour camp for mostly Jewish and Polish prisoners. Auschwitz also had dozens of subcamps in the wider region. More than 1.1 million people lost their lives in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including approximately 1 million Jews, 75,000 Poles, 21,000 Sinti and Roma, and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. As German forces retreated, around 120,000 surviving prisoners were evacuated from Auschwitz on so-called ‘death marches’ between August 1944 and January 1945 to camps and other Nazi internment sites in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. When the first Soviet troops arrived in Auschwitz and Birkenau on 27th January 1945, they found around 7,000 emaciated prisoners who had been left behind by the SS, mostly because they were too sick to make the journeys.
Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp in north-western Germany. It had originally been established as a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940, but in 1943 it came under the control of the SS and Jews began to be sent there. They were initially so-called ‘privileged’ Jews, such as holders of non-European passports or citizens of Allied countries. However, the camp completely changed in the last year of the war when tens of thousands of Jewish and other prisoners were evacuated from Auschwitz and other camps in eastern Europe, leading to catastrophic overcrowding, starvation and a typhus epidemic. An estimated 50,000 lost their lives, mainly in the very last months of the war. When British troops reached the camp, at the request of the local German authorities who were worried the typhus epidemic would reach the civilian population, they were confronted with this humanitarian disaster. Thousands continued to die in the weeks following the liberation but stability was eventually established. Survivors were gradually transferred to a nearby former German army barracks, which became the Belsen Displaced Persons (DP) camp, and began to rebuild their lives and to come to terms with their losses.
Warsaw is the capital of Poland and was home to Europe’s largest pre-war Jewish population. A ghetto was created in the city in November 1940 which, at its peak in spring 1941, contained more than 430,000 Jews. More than 70,000 died in the ghetto as a result of starvation and disease caused by the acute overcrowding. Between 22nd July and 12th September 1942 at least 235,000 Warsaw Jews were deported to their deaths in Treblinka extermination camp. When deportations resumed in 1943, they were met with resistance, culminating in the uprising, which was the first significant civilian rebellion anywhere in occupied Europe by Jews or non-Jews. The resistance fighters fought the Germans first on the streets and in buildings, and then in underground bunkers. Despite the huge disparity in weapons, size of forces, and military experience, it took the Germans almost a month – to 16th May – to fully defeat the uprising. Survivors of the uprising were sent to their deaths in Treblinka or to labour camps in the Lublin region, where most were later murdered in November 1943.
N.B. Yom HaShoah, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial day (which is also observed in the USA and Canada and by Jewish communities around the world), marks the uprising but on a different date. 19th April 1943 was the eve (14 Nisan in the Hebrew calendar) of the Jewish holiday of Passover – the Nazis often chose Jewish holidays for major actions against Jews. Because of the existing religious significance of this date, it was decided by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) that it could not be used when Yom HaShoah was established in the 1950s; instead, a date (27 Nisan) between the end of Passover and Israeli Independence Day was chosen.
Treblinka was an extermination camp in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland which operated between July 1942 and August 1943. At least 780,000, and possibly more than 900,000, Jews were murdered in Treblinka, almost all of them on arrival. Unlike Auschwitz, only a very small number of the people sent to the camp were ever selected to work, which involved sorting the property of victims or disposing of their bodies. On 2nd August 1943 the surviving inmates revolted and several hundred escaped; around 60 survived the war
The Sonderkommando were Jewish prisoners who worked in and around the gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau. On 7th October 1944, members of the Sonderkommando staged a revolt in which they killed three SS men and partially destroyed one of the crematoria, using explosives smuggled to them by Jewish women prisoners who worked in a nearby German munitions factory. Many of the Sonderkommando escaped but were soon apprehended by the SS; almost all were executed as were, three months later, four of the women who had provided the explosives.
Sobibór was an extermination camp in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland which operated between May 1942 and October 1943. At least 170,000 Jews were murdered in Sobibór, almost all of them on arrival. Unlike Auschwitz, only a very small number of the people sent to the camp were ever selected to work, which involved sorting the property of victims or disposing of their bodies. On 14th October 1943 the surviving inmates revolted, killing several SS men. Around 300 escaped the camp; around 50 survived the war.
Kristallnacht (literally ‘Night of Broken Glass’ (German)) is the name commonly given to a nationwide pogrom, organised by the Nazis, in Germany and Austria on the night of 9th-10th November 1938 in which Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and looted, synagogues burned, and at least 91 people killed; several hundred more committed suicide. More than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and held in concentration camps until they agreed to leave Germany. In the following days, a barrage of new antisemitic laws effectively deprived German Jews of any remaining rights. The pretext for the pogrom was the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Jewish man whose parents had previously been deported by the Nazis; in reality, pressure for violent action against Jews had been growing within the Nazi movement for months.
Kindertransport (literally ‘children’s transport’ (German)) is the name given to the programme whereby almost 10,000 mostly Jewish child refugees were able to come to the UK following the Kristallnacht pogrom until the outbreak of the Second World War curtailed the operation. The initiative for and organisation of the Kindertransport was the responsibility of charitable agencies, most of them Jewish, which had to find homes for the children, supervise their welfare and pay financial guarantees required by the British government. Although the government did partially relax its restrictive immigration laws to allow the admission of the child refugees, it did not do so for adults, so most of the children were unaccompanied; many never saw their parents again.