NIGHT BACKGROUND NOTES

"...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of

all..."

Elie Wiesel at 15

Holocaust Dates to Remember Jan 1933 – Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of

Germany March 1933 – Dachau concentration camp

opened April 1933 – Nazi’s boycott Jewish businesses

Gestapo is born August 1934 – Hitler becomes Fuhrer September 1935 – Nuremberg Race Laws

decreed

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html

Dates continued . . .

February 1936 – Gestapo placed above the laws March 1936 – SS Deathshead division is

established to guard concentration camps March 1938 – Nazi troops enter Austria –

Anschluss (union with Germany) April 1938 – Jews forced to register wealth and

property July 1938 – US calls Evian Conference to house

refugees – only Dominican Republic agrees to increase immigration quota

November 1938 – Kristallnacht – Night of Broken Glass – Jews fined for damages

More Dates . . .

March 1939 – Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia September 1939 – Nazis invade Poland

England and France declare war on Germany Soviet Troops invade eastern Poland

All But My Life – Arthur complies with Summons to appear In My Hands – Irene fights with the Resistance and is captured

by the Soviets

April 1940 – Lodz Ghetto sealed off from outside world.

May 1940 – Germany invades France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg

November 1940 – Krakow and Warsaw Ghettos are sealed off

June 1941 – Nazis invade Soviet Union Summer 1941 – Final Solution September 1941 – first test of Zyklon-B

gas at Auschwitz December 7, 1941 – Japanese attack

Pearl Harbor. United States joins WWII declaring war on

Japan and later on Germany

Spring of 1942 – Massive Deportations begin All But My Life – Gerda is sent to Dulag

April 1942 – In My Hands – Irene and Major Rugemer move to Lvov

Jan 1943 – First resistance by Jews in Warsaw Ghetto

March and April 1943 – New gas chambers opened at Auschwitz

June 6, 1944 – D-Day, Allied landings in Normandy August 1944 – Last Jewish ghetto in Poland is

liquidated with 60,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz

October 30, 1944 – Last use of gas chambers at Auschwitz

November 1944 – Nazis force 25,00 0 Jews to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border

November 25th – Himmler orders the destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz

Late 1944 – Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews.

Early 1945 – Nazis conduct death marches to move inmates away from camps

Jan 14, 1945 - Invasion of eastern Germany by Soviet Troops

Jan 17 – Liberation of Warsaw by Soviets Jan 18 – Nazis evacuate 66,000 from

Auschwitz Jan 27 – Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz

- app. 2 million killed there

1945

April 4 – General Eisenhower visits the liberated Ohrdruf camp

April 10 - Allies liberate Buchenwald April 15 – app. 40,000 prisoners freed

at Bergen-Belsen April 30 – Hitler commits suicide

- Americans free 33,000 inmates from camps

Definitions

Prejudice – An irrational hatred of a person, group or race based upon a preconceived opinion or judgment

Scapegoat – an innocent person, group or race who is blamed for the general problems of society and punished harshly for them

Genocide – The mass extermination of a very large group of people because of their nationality, race or religion.

Anti-Semitism – ill feeling or hatred toward the Jews

Stereotype – a generalization of a person who is regarded not as an individual but as a member of a group or nationality

Definitions, cont . . .

Holocaust - a burnt offering; the destruction of 6 million Jews in death camps from 1941-1945

Nazi – The National Socialist German Workers Party

S.S. – The elite guard, or special force, of the Nazis headed by Himmler

Gestapo – The German secret police Kapo – Brutal Jewish prisoners, controlled

concentration camp inmates for Germans in exchange for special treatment

Elie Wiesel’s Lifehttp://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx

Born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania (now Romania)

15 years old when he and family were deported to Auschwitz

Studied to become a journalist after war

Persuaded by French writer to write about his experiences

Since 1976 he has been a professor at Boston University

Member of the faculty in the department of Religion and Philosophy

1986 won Nobel Peace Prize Established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for

Humanity American Citizen since 1963, lives with his

wife in Connecticut Night is the most widely read book detailing

the events of the Holocaust.

Nobel Prize SpeechI remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?"

And now the boy is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?" And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides.