Nazi Germany occupies Poland
In annexed and occupied Poland, the Nazis set up ghettos. Already in 1939 they start deporting Jews to the area around Lublin. First from Vienna and later also from other places.
In 1940, Roma and Sinti are deported from assembly camps in Germany to ghettos in occupied Poland.
After the victory over France, Jews from southwest Germany are sent over the border there to camps in the south.
© Anne Frank HouseEinsatzgruppen
As part of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis send special killing squads, called Einsatzgruppen, to the conquered parts of the Soviet Union. They kill large groups of Jews, sometimes first collecting them in ghettos or camps.
During the same period, Jews are persecuted in Croatia and Serbia. The most notorious camp in the Balkans is that of Jasenovac.
© Anne Frank HouseReinhard Action
To facilitate the genocide of the Polish Jews, the Nazis begin to use gas in special camps. The first of these camps is Chelmno. The special extermination camps in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka are ready in the spring of 1942.
From the end of 1941, Jews from all over Germany are deported to assembly camps and ghettos in the conquered Soviet Union. Here they are killed or used as forced labourers.
© Anne Frank HouseAuschwitz-Birkenau
In the spring of 1942, the large Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp is put into use. Jews, Roma and Sinti are brought to this camp from all occupied parts of Europe, and also to the other extermination camps set up in the Reinhard Action.
As the Soviet army approaches from the east, the Nazis dismantle the extermination camps and kill the prisoners or deport them to camps further west in Germany.
© Anne Frank HouseThe Shoah
The numbers of Jews murdered in Europe.
© Anne Frank House
