Holocaust Calendar: March 13
Ken McVay
1933
"...forcible closing of Jewish shops was imposed by the local SA in
Mannheim; in Breslau, Jewish lawyers and judges were assaulted in the
court building; and in Gedern, in Hesse, the SA broke into Jewish
homes and beat up the inhabitants 'with the acclaimation of a rapidly
growing crowd.'"(Friedlaender, 18)
1939
General Keitel issues an secret order which allowed Mischlinge
officers "to remain in the standing army by decision of the Fuehrer."
Mischlinge were those Germans with mixed Jewish and non-Jewish
relatives. They were considered neither Jewish nor "Aryan". (Abrams,
25,48)
1942
A Directive by the Reich Labor Ministry about the employment of
Gypsies is announced. The special regulations drafted for Jews in the
area of social law will now also apply to Gypsies. (Ruerup, 125)
1943
"Operation Flash," an attempt by an anti-Hitler group of
Wehrmacht officers (General Friedrich Olbricht, General von
Tresckow, and Fabian von Schlabrendorff) to kill the Fuehrer
is unsuccessful; a bomb placed in his private plane fails to
explode. (USHMM 1993, p. 27)
The SS establishes Ostindustrie GmbH (Eastern Industry,
Ltd.), an industrial network including ironworks, fur
workshops, and peat works, to exploit Jewish laborers in the
General Government (Poland) pending their eventual
deportation. (Ibid.)
March 13-14, 1943
German forces liquidate the two sections of the Cracow
ghetto. Two thousand Jews are killed on the spot, four
thousand are deported to Auschwitz, and thousands of others
are sent to the nearby forced-labor and concentration camp
of Plaszow within Cracow's city limits. (USHMM 1993, p. 27)
1944
Hannah Szenes, who trained with a group of Palestine
underground fighters in Egypt, arrives in Bari, Italy,
together with Reuben Dafni. She subsequently reaches
Yugoslavia, where she works with Tito's partisans for three
months. (USHMM 1994, 32)
DEGESH (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Schaedlingsbekaempfung
mbH), a subsidiary of the I.G. Farben chemical conglomerate,
bills the Auschwitz concentration camp and killing center
for the sum of 1,050 reichsmark for delivery on March 8 of
210 kilograms (462 pounds) of Zyklon B. (Zykon B was used in
the gas chambers at Auschwitz.) (Ibid.)
Work Cited
Abrams, Alan. Special Treatment: The Untold Story of Hitler's Third
Race. Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1985
Friedlaender, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume I: The Years of
Persecution, 1933-1939. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997
USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Fifty
Years Ago: Revolt Amid the Darkness: Days of Remembrance,
April 18-25, 1993. Washington, D.C.: 1993
USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Fifty
Years Ago: Darkness Before Dawn: Days of Remembrance, April
3-10, 1994. Washington, D.C.: 1994
Ruerup, Reinhard, Ed., trans. By Werner T. Angress. Topography of
Terror. Berliner Festspiele GmbH, Berlin: 1987
--
"The antisemite has chosen hate because hate is a faith;
at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons."
(Sarte. Antisemite and Jew, p. 19)
The Nizkor Project: http://www.nizkor.org