Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach

Timeline 1933-1939

Hitler Comes to Power Legally

Amid a worldwide Depression and widespread German disillusionment, the Nazi Party wins 33% of the Parliamentary vote. Hitler is appointed Chancellor. First 100 days in office: Burning of the Reichstag (German Parliament), martial law, first concentration camp (Dachau), boycott of Jewish business, expulsion of Jews from civil service, burning of books.

Adolph Hitler with President Paul von Hindenburg, Potsdam, Germany, 1933 / USHMM
The Nuremburg Laws

In September1935, a series of new laws eliminates the civil and political rights of Jews and strips them of their German citizenship. Marriage between Jews and Aryans (non-Jews) is prohibited and Jews cannot fly the German flag.

Boycott signs in the window of J. Neumann Cigarren, a Jewish-owned tobacco shop, Berlin, 1933 / USHMM
The Berlin Olympics

Hitler uses the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a propaganda tool to build international legitimacy for the Nazi regime. Antisemitic signs are temporarily removed and racial violence is toned down during the games, but Jewish athletes are still banned from German teams. Jesse Owens, an African American, wins four gold medals.

Spectators fill the bleachers of the swimming stadium, Berlin, 1936 / USHMM
German Expansionism

Germany invades and annexes Austria in March 1938. In September, the leaders of England and France agree to appease Hitler and allow him to control an area of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. In October, Jews of Polish origin are expelled from Germany.

Czech refugees expelled from the Sudetenland at the Refugees Office, October 1938
Kristallnacht

On Novermber 9, 1938, a Nazi-initiated pogrom (anti-Jewish riot) erupts across Germany and Austria. More than 1,000 synagogues are burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses looted, and 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps.

Germans pass by the broken window of a Jewish-owned business destroyed during Kristallnacht, Berlin, 1938 / USHMM
Kindertransport

Under pressure from the Jewish community and humanitarian groups, Great Britain agrees to accept 10,000 Jewish children for resettlement in England. The US refuses to consider a bill to accept 20,000 Jewish children.

The first Kindertransport arrives in Harwich, England, December, 1938 / USHMM
St. Louis

The MS St. Louis sails from Hamburg to Cuba in May 1939, but its 936 passengers are unable to land because their Cuban visas have been cancelled. Despite desperate pleas to Cuba, the US, and other countries, the ship is forced to return to Europe. By war’s end, more than one-quarter of the passengers would be killed by the Nazis.

Members of the Heilbrun family on board the MS St. Louis, 1939 / USHMM
Germany Invades Poland

Germany invades Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declare war as World War II begins. Poland falls within a month and the Germans introduce harsh occupation policies, murdering many political and religious Polish leaders and incarcerating many more. Polish Jews are forced into ghettos. The Soviet Union invades Eastern Poland on September 17.

German soldiers march into Warsaw, 1939 / USHMM
Murder of Handicapped Germans

In October 1939, the murder of handicapped German non-Jews begins. They are the first Nazi victims to be gassed to death in six specialized killing centers.

Bus for collecting patients at Hartheim Nazi killing center, circa 1940 / Dokumentationsstelle Hartheim