September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland.
September 5, 1939
German troops enter Piotrkow.
September 21, 1939
Reinhard Heydrich orders the creation of Jewish ghettos.
October 8, 1939
First ghetto is established in Piotkrow.
February 8, 1940
Lodz ghetto is established.
May 1, 1940
Lodz ghetto is sealed.
October 12, 1940
“Quarantine” area is established in Warsaw.
November 15, 1940
Warsaw ghetto is sealed.
June 22, 1941
Operation Barbarossa: Nazis invade Russia.
June 23, 1941
Execution squads begin the murder of Russian Jews.
July 8, 1941
Mass executions at Ponar.
July 20, 1941
Minsk ghetto is established.
August 1, 1941
Bialystok ghetto is established.
September 3–6, 1941
Vilna ghetto is established.
September 29–30, 1941
Kiev Jews are murdered at Babi Yar.
January 4, 1942
Rumkowski boasts about “rescue through work.”
January 20, 1942
Wannsee Conference sets “final solution.”
February 8, 1942
Beginning of deportations to death camps.
July 23, 1942
Suicide of Adam Czerniakow.
July 28, 1942
Jewish resistance group is formed in Warsaw.
September 4, 1942
Rumkowski deports children of Lodz.
October 27, 1942
Gens deports elderly of Vilna.
January 18, 1943
Twelve Jewish freedom fighters stage a revolt to disrupt deportation from the Warsaw ghetto.
February 2, 1943
Nazis are defeated at Stalingrad.
April 19, 1943
Nazis start liquidating the Warsaw ghetto; Warsaw ghetto uprising begins.
May 16, 1943
Uprising ends and Warsaw ghetto burns.
July 21, 1943
Himmler orders liquidation of all ghettos.
March 1944
Emmanuel Ringelblum is executed with his family.
August 1944
Liquidation of Lodz ghetto begins; Chaim and Regina Rumkowski are gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
September 18, 1946
First part of Oneg Shabbat Archives is discovered in Warsaw.