The Holocaust: 1933-1939 January 2021
In 1933, Adolph Hitler is appointed German chancellor. The Third Reich (Nazi State) soon became a regime in which citizens had no guaranteed basic rights. In 1933, the first concentration camps were established to imprison political opponents, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others deemed as “dangerous.” During the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, German Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives.

The Holocaust: 1939-1945 March 2021
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started WWII. German officials confiscated Jewish property, in many places required Jews to wear identifying armbands, and established ghettos and forced-labor camps. Often drawing on local civilian and police support, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) followed the German army and carried out mass shootings. These years saw systematic deportations of millions of Jews to increasingly efficient killing centers using poison gas.