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Shabbat Shalom HaGesher!

Candle Lighting: Friday, 7:39pm

Havdalah: Saturday, 9:10pm

Parsha HaShavuah: Kedoshim

Yom HaShoah: Thursday, May 2, 2008

Rosh Chodesh Iyyar: Monday, May 5

Today is Yom HaShoah, the day we remember the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Many of you may have grandparents, relatives or friends who survived Concentration Camps and other forms of persecution by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. But for those of you not as familiar with Yom HaShoah, I will try to give you a brief unbiased overview and progression of Hitler's reign in a time line-- although in no way will it do justice to the immensity of the destruction caused in World War II. Please take a few moments to read it.

1933:

--Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (nicknamed Nazi for short), is named the Chancellor of Germany

--Dachau, the first Concentration Camp for Jews is opened

--Nazis boycott all Jewish business

--Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land and newspapers

1935:

--Nuremberg Race Laws, deprived Jews of German citizenship and prohibited Jews from marriage outside their religion.

1936:

--Hitler invades the Rhineland

--Berlin Olympics, Hitler temporarily halts persecution against the Jews

1938:

--Evian Conference, Hitler convenes with 32 other countries, begging them to take his Jewish population, not a single country accepts except the Dominican Republic

--All Jews are required to add either "Sarah" or "Israel" and a "J" to their passports

--Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass: 7,500 businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned and 91 Jews killed

1939:

--Hitler threatens the Jews in his Reichstag Speech

--Hitler invades Poland, with the help of USSR's Stalin (population of 3.35 million Jews)

--England and France declare war on Germany

--Nazis begin Euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany

--All polish Jews must wear a Jewish star labeled "Jude" on their jackets

1940:

--Auschwitz is chosen as the central Concentration Camp site

--Hitler invades Denmark and Norway, both with a large amount of Jews

--the Lodz Ghetto is sealed with 230,000 Jews locked inside

--Hitler invades France, divided up into Nazi-run France and Vichy (free) France

--Krakow Ghetto is sealed off, contained 70,000 Jews

--Warsaw Ghetto contains 400,000 Jews

1941:

--Hitler invades USSR (jewish population of 3 million)

--the first test of Zyklon-B gas is used at Auschwitz

--23,000 Jews in Kamenets-Podolosk are killed

--35,000 Jews in Odessa are shot

--Theresienstadt Camp is formed (for propaganda purposes)

--Hitler declares war on America

1942:

--Major deportations begin from France, Poland, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz

--Mass killings in Ukraine, Poland, Russia

--Sterilization experiments on Jewish women in Birkenau

1943:

--Total number of Jews killed reaches 1 million

--3 new gas chambers opened in Auschwitz

--Danish underground transports 7,220 Jews to safety

--Operation Harvest Festival, 42,000 Jews killed

1944:

--D-Day, the Allies land in Normandy with 4600 vessals

--40,000 Polish children are kidnapped for slave labor in the Reich

--Concentration camps begin to close down

--Oskar Schindler saves 1,200 Jews

1945:

--As the allies advance, the Nazis conduct Death Marches

--Over 2 million Jews have been murdered so far in Auschwitz

--Auschwitz and Buchenwald are liberated by the Allies

--Hitler commits suicide

--Unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies

1948:

--Foundation of a Jewish state

I hope you all take a minute to remember the 6 million Jews massacred by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime in World War II. It was Roosevelt's silence and the silence of many others that only progressed Hitler's extermination of the Jews. So please, do not turn your back, like many during the Holocaust, towards Genocide and wrongdoings. Do whatever you can in your power to make a difference. Because every little bit counts.

Shabbat Shalom,

Becka Lefkoe

2008-2009 Religion/Education V.P.