Shock Report: The Life of European Jews in Hitler's Time *
A Timeline of the Holocaust in relation with John Freund's story
In the following timeline, the entries in bold refer specifically to Czechoslovakia, the Czech Jews and the life of John Freund and his family.
1930
John Freund is born 1930 in České Budějovice, in the province of Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.
The Nazi party wins power in Germany after gaining the most votes in parliamentary elections. Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenberg.
1933
After months of negotiations, the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, appoints Hitler chancellor of Germany on January 30.
The Reichstag Fire Decree on February 28 permits the suspension of basic civil rights and the Third Reich becomes a police state. Political opponents, especially those in the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, along with Jews, are subject to intimidation, persecution and discriminatory legislation.
In April, German authorities begin eliminating Jews from governmental agencies and state positions in the economy, law and cultural life.
1934
German President von Hindenburg dies on August 2 and Hitler becomes “Führer,” in addition to his position as chancellor. Because there is no longer any legal or constitutional limit to Hitler’s power as leader, he becomes absolute dictator of Germany.
1935
The Nazi government decrees the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of the German Blood and Honour — the so-called Nuremberg Laws — on September 15. The Nuremberg Laws deprive Jews of citizenship and other fundamental rights and make them second-class citizens. The Nazi government later apply the laws to Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) and black people residing in Germany, and intensify the persecution of political dissidents and others considered “racially inferior,” — in addition to Jews, Roma and Sinti, this includes Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled people and homosexuals. Many are sent to concentration camps.
1938
On September 30, Britain, France, Italy and Germany sign the Munich Pact, forcing Czechoslovakia to cede its border areas to the German Reich.
1939
The Jewish population in Europe on the eve of World War II is 9.5 million.
German troops occupy the Czech lands and establish the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15. On June 21, the Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath issues a long list of anti-Jewish decrees designed to destroy the economic viability of the Jewish population and confiscates all Jewish property.
The Treaty on Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), known colloquially as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, is signed on August 23. This clears the way for Nazi Germany to attack Poland without fear of Soviet retaliation.
On September 1, Nazi Germany invades Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. On September 3, Britain and France, standing by their guarantee to protect Poland's border, declare war on Germany.
In October 1939, the first Czech Jews are deported to concentration camps in Poland.
1940
In January, the Nazis start murdering disabled people by gassing.
The Nazis begin deporting German Jews to Poland. Jews are forced into ghettos.
In April and May, Nazi Germany successfully invades Northern and Western Europe (the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Luxemburg, Belgium and France).
On May 20, the SS establish the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (Auschwitz I) outside the Polish town of Oświęcim.
The Nazis begin the first mass murders of Jews in Poland.
1941
Nazi Germany attacks the Soviet Union. Right after Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units), along with Waffen SS units, the German police and local collaborators begin the systematic slaughter of Jews in Ukraine and across all of the Soviet territory – the so-called Holocaust by bullets – killing between 2 and 2.6 million Jews between 1941 and 1944.
Reinhard Heydrich, Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, arrives in Prague on September 27. The liquidation of Czech Jewry starts with subsequent deportations to Lodz, Minsk and Riga, and the establishment of the camp-ghetto in Terezin (Theresienstadt in German), 60 kilometres north of Prague.
In October-November, Operation Reinhard — the code name for the Nazi plan to murder the Jews living in the General Government region of occupied Poland — begins with the construction of the killing centres in Poland, at Chełmno, Sobibór, Bełzec, and Treblinka.
On December 7, after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next morning, the United States declared war on Japan.
On December 11, Germany and Italy — allies of Japan — declare war on the United States.
1942
On January 5, the Nazis set off an explosion that destroys the synagogue of České Budějovice.
At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, Nazi officials reveal the “Final Solution” — their plan to kill all European Jews including those in neutral countries and those not under their sphere of influence.
The ghettos of Eastern Europe are emptied as thousands of Jews are deported to the death camps in Bełzec (March 1942), Sobibór (April), Treblinka (July).
Allied radio broadcasts acknowledge that the Nazis are systematically murdering the Jews of Europe.
By March, 20 to 25 per cent of the Jews who would die in the Holocaust have already been murdered.
On April 18, 909 Jews from České Budějovice, including the Freund family, are deported to Terezin. During the three and a half years of its operation (from November 24, 1941, to May 9, 1945), 139,654 people went through Terezin. Of these, 86,934 were transported to camps farther East (only 3,097 returned) and 33,430 died in Terezin.
At the end of 1942, the Terezin inmates are authorized to participate in cultural activities as the camp is used as a model camp by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, a showcase of their supposedly humane treatment of Jews to be displayed to visitors from abroad.
1943
The battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943 is considered a turning point of World War II. From that moment on, the Nazis begin to conduct a defensive war and retreat west until their final defeat in Berlin. On February 2, 1943 Germans surrender at Stalingrad. In part, the 1943 defeat at Stalingrad is due to the fact that the Nazis continued to use the trains to deport Jews rather than to bring ammunition to the Eastern Front. As the military situation deteriorates, Hitler decides to emphasize his other main objective: the mass killing of Jews.
By February, 80 to 85 per cent of the Jews who would die in the Holocaust have been murdered.
On June 13, John Freund has his bar mitzvah in Terezin.
On September 8, 5,006 Jews from Terezin arrive in Auschwitz to inhabit the newly established Czech family camp,or Familienlager.
On December 16, John Freund and his family arrive in the second group to occupy the Czech family camp, transported on a freight cattle train. They stay together in the family camp for six months and are forced to write positive-sounding postcards to Terezin and home.
1944
On March 7, the “old timers,” the people who arrived at the family camp before John Freund, are killed.
On D-Day, June 6, British and American troops launch an invasion of France.
On June 22, a massive Soviet offensive destroys the German front in Belorussia and
in July, the approaching Soviet forces liberate Vilna, Lithuania.
On July 6, John Freund’s father and his brother are among the one thousand men sent to other camps. They are taken on a forced march and killed along the way.
On July 10, John Freund’s mother is one of three thousand women and children sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.
John Freund is sent to the Männerlager (men’s camp) until January 1945. He is recruited to be part of the Rollwagenkommando (transport detail) and witnesses the destruction of the crematoria in Auschwitz as the Nazis attempt to erase the evidence of the mass murder they carried out in Eastern and Central Europe.
1945
On January 17, the SS begin evacuating Auschwitz-Birkenau (the Auschwitz camp complex) because of the approaching Soviet troops.
From January 10 to April 22, John Freund is taken on a death march from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Flossenbürg, a camp for political prisoners in Germany.
Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27. Approximately 8,000 prisoners who remained behind are liberated.
An International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, is created by Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union on November 20. At Nuremberg, Nazi leaders are tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
On April 22, John Freund is liberated by American troops.
On April 30, Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
On May 2, Nazi troops in Berlin surrender to Soviet forces.
German control in Czechoslovakia finally ends on May 11, 1945, when Soviet soldiers liberate Prague.
The war in Europe ends in May with Germany’s unconditional surrender. Allied and Soviet forces proclaim May 8, 1945, to be Victory in Europe Day. World War II officially ends on September 2, 1945 when Japan surrenders.
The Holocaust is over. Six million European Jews — almost two-thirds of the pre-war European Jewish population — have been murdered.
In May, John returns to České Budějovice and then goes to his Aunt Anna and Uncle Max in Prague.
At the Potsdam Conference in July-August, Germany is divided into four Allied occupation zones.
1948
In February, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, seizes control of the government. They hold power until 1989.
On March 12, John leaves Prague with a group of thirty war orphans under the age of eighteen to start a new life in Canada.
The word genocide is created by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, who dedicated his life to creating legal protections for ethnic, national, religious and cultural groups, is adopted during the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopts and proclaims the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first universal statement on the basic principles of inalienable human rights and a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
Sources for the Timeline
Dutlinger, Ann D. Art, Music, and Education as Strategies for Survival: Theresienstadt 1941-45.New York: Herodias, 2001.
Encyclopédie multimedia de la Shoah. Text from the USHMM.
memorial-wlc.recette.lbn.fr/fr/.
Freund, John. Spring’s End. Toronto and Montreal: The Azrieli Foundation, 2007.
Krinsky, Carol Herselle. Synagogues of Europe:Architecture, History, Meaning. New York City: Courier Dover Publications, 1996.
Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris
Rothkirchen, Livia. The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: Facing the Holocaust. Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
United Nations. “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. “Holocaust Encyclopedia.”
www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/resource/pdf/chronology.pdf