Template:Vrba-Wetzler timeline

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The Holocaust
Vrba–Wetzler report
timeline
Main railroad track into Auschwitz
Main railroad track into
Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
Timeline
1942
1943
  • 27 April
  • Witold Pilecki escapes. Witold's report is filed away by the OSS.
  • May
  • Stanislaw Chybinski, a member of the Polish Home Army, escapes and compiles the report "Snapshots of Auschwitz".
  • 19 November
  • Jerzy Tabeau and Roman Cieliczko escape. Their January 1944 report becomes known as the "Polish Major's report".
    • March 1944
    • 19 March
    • Germany invades Hungary.
    • 22 March
    • The Washington Post and the New York Herald Tribune report the existence of gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz.
    April 1944
    • 5 April
    • Siegfried Lederer escapes to warn Jews in Theresienstadt and the Red Cross about the mass murder inside Auschwitz.
    • 7–11 April
    • Vrba and Wetzler escape.
    • 22 / 23 April
    • Vrba and Wetzler arrive in Žilina, Slovakia.
    • 24 April
    • Vrba and Wetzler meet Dr Oscar Neumann of the Bratislava Working Group.
    • 27 April
    • German translation of the Vrba–Wetzler report completed.
    • 28 April
    • The first trainload of Hungarian Jews leaves for Auschwitz.
    • c. 28 April
    • Rezső Kasztner of the Aid and Rescue Committee obtains the report and gives a copy of the report to Geza Soos, Hungarian Foreign Ministry official; Soos gives it to Joszef Elias; Elias's secretary translates it into Hungarian and prepares six copies for Hungarian officials.
    May 1944
    • 15 May
    • Mass transports begin of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day.
    • 27 May
    • Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz escape Auschwitz.
    June 1944
    • 4 June
    • The New York Times describes the gas chambers and said that Jews were being executed.
    • 6 June
    • Allied invasion of Normandy, France.
    • mid June
    • The Vrba–Wetzler report reaches the British and US governments.
    • 15 June
    • The BBC World Service reports that 4,000 Jews from Theresienstadt were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz during March 1944. Rosin and Mordowicz tell Krasniansky 100,000 Hungarian Jews were killed on arrival between 15 and 27 May, unaware of what was about to happen to them.
    • 16 June
    • The New York World Telegram repeats the BBC's information. Allen Dulles, Swiss director of the US Office of Strategic Services, sends the Vrba–Wetzler report to the US State Department.
    • 17 June
    • The Los Angeles Times repeats the BBC's information.
    • 20 June
    • 'The Washington Times Herald reports the same, courtesy of Reuters, while The New York Times offers further details. In Bratislava, Vrba discusses his report with Vatican legate Monsignor Mario Martilotti, who then sends a copy to the Vatican via Switzerland.
    • 25 June
    • The New York Times reports that "new mass executions" recently took place in Auschwitz.
    • 30 June
    • The Kastner train, carrying 1,684 Jews, leaves Hungary for Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen.
    July 1944
    • 1–10 July
    • Several newspapers report that, between April 1942 and April 1944, 1.5 to 1.7 million Jews were killed at Auschwitz (from the Vrba-Wetzler report).
    • 7 July
    • Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy orders a halt to the deportations.
    • 9 July
    • Mass deportations end.
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    Background
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