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When: August 25, 1939

What: German forces broke through Polish defenses along the border and quickly advanced on Warsaw, the Polish capital.

Why: The Germans wanted to reclaim lost territories and fulfill Hitler's expansionist goals.

source:https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/invasion-poland-september-1939

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When: June 6, 1944

What: The capture and subjugation of not only France but three other countries

Why: It began after months of relative calm following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939

Source: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/dover-castle/history-and-stories/fall-of-france/#:~:text=Between%209%20May%20and%2022,Luxembourg%2C%20the%20Netherlands%20and%20Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

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Between 9 May and 22 June 1940, a remarkable German assault on north-west Europe, known as the Battle of France, resulted in the capture and subjugation of not only France but three other countries - Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. It also witnessed the retreat of the British Army and its evacuation home from Dunkirk - controlled from Dover Castle - and other western French ports. It was a dark time in the history of Europe.

Trace the events leading up to the battle, the campaign itself and its aftermath below.

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The Fall of France in the Second World War

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Between 9 May and 22 June 1940, a remarkable German assault on north-west Europe, known as the Battle of France, resulted in the capture and subjugation of not only France but three other countries - Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium.

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when: September 2, 1945

What: Japan's surrender in September 1945

Why: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war.

source:https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/end-world-war-ii-1945

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The End of World War II 1945 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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Explore articles, web series, podcast episodes, live webinars and more from the Museum about the end of World War II.

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in 1942

to drop the casings from bombers over Japan, triggering fires and causing widespread damage

initiating fires in Japan, leveraging the bats' natural tendency to seek dark, enclosed spaces.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/bat-bombs-wwiis-project-x-ray/

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When: October 3, 1942

what: The V-2, also known as the A4, was developed by Nazi Germany as a vengeance weapon

Why: To attack Allied cities in retaliation for Allied bombings of German cities

source:https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/missile-surface-surface-v-2-4/nasm_A19600342000

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The V-2 rocket, developed and used by the Germans during World War II, was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket vehicle, the first modern long-range ballistic missile, and the ancestor of today's large-scale liquid-fuel rockets and launch vehicles. Called the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance, the rocket was dubbed V-2, or Vergeltungswaffe Zwei ("Vengeance Weapon Two"), by Dr. Josef Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry when its existence was publicly announced in November 1944, two months after it was first deployed as a weapon. The Smithsonian Institution's V-2 was acquired in 1946 from the U.S. Army Air Forces, and was officially transferred on 1 May 1949 by what was now the U.S. Air Force. It was moved to the National Air Museum's storage facility in Suitland, Maryland in 1954, and was restored in 1975-76 for exhibition in the new National Air and Space Museum building.

Construction

The V-2 is cylindrical, tapering down towards the base, with four clipped rectangular fins, and tapering down toward the top with an ogival warhead ending in a sharp pointed nose. The design of the clipped fins was influenced by the need to ship a military missile through standard European rail tunnels. Overall, the rocket was shaped for supersonic flight, based on wind tunnel tests. The "dimpled" appearance of the rocket's skin, as is very evident in the Museum's specimen, is partly the result of spot welding, which, when cooled, especially around panels in place near ribs or stringers, contracted or shrunk unevenly, although the rocket's skin was also damaged by years of rough handling. The Museum's artifact has a combustion chamber, but lacks plumbing and many internal components such as the guidance and control systems. The tanks were removed to lessen the weight supported by the fins.

Liquid oxygen (lox) served as the oxidizer (the substance providing the oxygen for combustion) while an 75% alcohol/water mixture was the fuel (the substance to be burned). The water additive helped cool the motor, which developed maximum operating temperatures of about 4,900 F.

The rocket was mainly constructed of thin sheet steel, welded, riveted, and braced around a wooden framework in some sections. The nose cap was a fuse for detonating the explosive, 1,650 lbs of amatol, upon impact. Underneath the warhead was the instrument section, divided into four quadrants devoted to guidance and control, radio, and electrical systems. The center section of the rocket was two half shells containing the aluminum-magnesium alloy propellant tanks, the lox tank below and the larger fuel tank above. The lox tank was insulated with glass wool to keep the super-cold lox at its desired temperature and also to prevent overheating from leftover propellants. The tail section contained the motor and adjoining turbopump, steam-generator, and associated plumbing. The motor, comprising the combustion chamber and nozzle, was made of steel, while the pumps were of steel with aluminum-silicon alloy impellers and housings. The tanks for the hydrogen peroxide and potassium permanganate catalyst for driving the turbopumps were coated inside and out with an aluminum bronze alloy for corrosion protection.

History

The V-2 (A-4) evolved from secret experimental tests made between 1932 and 1934 by the German Army on smaller lox-alcohol liquid-fuel rockets, designated A-1 and A-2, of 300 kg (660 lbs.) thrust at the Army's Kummersdorf artillery range, south of Berlin. Two A-2s were successfully flown in December 1934, from Borkum Island in the North Sea. These were followed by the1,500 kg (3,300 lb.) thrust A-3, designed and built in 1935-1937, and the A-4 which was proposed in 1936 as a projected 25 metric-ton thrust (56,000 lb.) scale-up of the A-3. The A-4 was designed in detail in 1939-1941. The A-5, a redesign of the A-3 launched from 1938 to 1943, was also very important, as it was the test-bed for guidance systems after the failure of the four A-3 launches in 1937. It was. The moving spirits of the A-4's development were Dr. Wernher von Braun, Technical Director of the Peenemünde Army center from its inception until the end, and Captain (later Brigadier General) Walter R. Dornberger, who became involved in the Army's rocket development in 1931, and was the military head of the program from 1936 to 1943. During the last 18 months of the war he was responsible for training, supplying and servicing the operational V-2 rocket units.

In April, 1937, the rocket group of then about 90 men moved to a much larger, secret research facility built at the relatively remote site of Peenemünde on the island of Usedom, off the Baltic coast of Pomerania. Besides the A-4, other missiles, such as the Wasserfall, were developed here. A-4 development took place at Peenemünde-Ost (Peenemünde East). The Luftwaffe (Air Force) occupied Peenemünde West. The estimated cost of establishing Peenemünde-Ost was about RM 300 million (Reichmarks), or $70 million US (for 1990s dollars, multiply by about a factor of 10). By 1942, the personnel of Peenemünde-East had grown to a work force of about 5,000 which included engineers, technicians, scientists and all other personnel. In addition there were thousands of construction workers building the new A-4 Production Plant south of the test center; by 1943 this number included three thousand mostly East European forced laborers working construction. In addition, in the summer of 1943, 1300 SS concentration-camp workers who were to become the core of the production-line workforce were brought to Peenemünde and housed in the factory buildings. Gen. Dornberger and Arthur Rudolph, the chief engineer of the factory, were among those responsible for deciding to exploit concentration-camp labor in the rocket program; Wernher von Braun was aware of these decisions and found himself increasingly involved in the management of camp labor as time went on.

The first non-flight vehicles were finished and tested in 1940-41, and the first flight vehicles were completed in 1942. After two failed launches in June and August 1942, on 3 October 1942 Peenemünde launched its first successful A-4, the V4, or fourth test vehicle (the first was destroyed in a ground test before it was ever launched). This rocket attained an altitude of 60 miles and range of 125 miles in a 296 second flight, coming within 2.5 miles of its target and reaching a top speed of 3,300 mph. On 22 November 1942, Hitler ordered the mass production of the missile, and exactly one month later, Armaments Minister Speer founded the Special Committee A-4 to accelerate the process so that production might begin in summer 1943. Production required a large number of drawings to be prepared and special tools designed and built. Other A-4 factories were to be located at the Zeppelin Works in Friedrichshafen, and the Raxwerke near Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

After the damaging Royal Air Force bombing of the facility during the night of 17-18 August 1943, A-4 manufacturing was shifted to the underground plant of Mittelwerk at Nordhausen, in the Harz Mountains. Undoubtedly, the Museum's V-2 was also made there. After the RAF raid, smaller scale improvement developments were still carried out at Peenemünde. (Altogether, about 250 developmental V-4s were made at Peenemünde.)

The initial cost of producing an A-4 rocket was 100,000 Reichmarks (warhead and guidance equipment not included); the average cost was later reduced to 75,110 RM. At Peenemünde, each A-4 took from 10,000-20,000 man-hours to produce, while at Mittelwerk the figure dropped to approximately 7,500. The rockets were made at Mittelwerk by 2,000 civilian technicians and approximately 10,000 prisoner laborers who lived in nearby barracks camp known as Dora, which became the main camp of Konzentrationslager Mittelbau in October 1944. The Dora prisoners lived in terrible conditions, especially during the first few months when the barracks had not been built, and prisoners were forced to live underground, and in the last few months of the war, when the food supply worsened and many prisoners from Auschwitz and other eastern camps were dumped into Mittelbau-Dora. Of the approximately 20,000 deaths in Mittelbau-Dora, about half can be ascribed to the V-2 program.

The V-1, a competing development launched by the Luftwaffe, was an air-breathing pulsejet-powered missile which inflicted a considerable amount of physical and psychological damage on Britain, Belgium and France. The V-2 was to be an even more decisive terror weapon, but the rocket was neither accurate, reliable, nor cost effective. On 7 September 1944 the first two operational rockets were fired against Paris, but both failed due to premature cutoffs. The first successful launch was made at 8:30 a.m. on 8 September and struck close to the Porte d'Italie. At 6:43 p.m. the same day, the missile was deployed against England and hit Chiswick, a suburb about six miles west of central London. In both operations the rockets were launched from the Hague-Wassenaar area of occupied Holland. Upon its introduction into the war, the weapon now became known as the V-2. During February-March, 1945, the heaviest period of rocket bombardment, the weekly average fired against England amounted to 60.

Figures vary in different sources, but during the remainder of the war 3,200 to 3,600 were sent towards Allied targets. In the U.K. they were mostly directed toward London; secondary targets were Southampton and Bristol. Out of these numbers, by one estimate, 1,115 reached the United Kingdom while 1,775 hit Continental targets. Of the latter, most were fired against Belgium, 1,610 striking Antwerp; between 80-100 against Liège, and a number against Brussels. Nineteen rockets hit Paris during its few days of V-2 bombardment. About 25% of the total rockets launched against the U.K. and Continental targets failed due to air bursts. About 600 V-2's were launched for training and experimental purposes.

Figures also differ as to the number of casualties and amount of property damage caused by the V-2, but the total number killed is variously estimated at about 5,500 ,while the number of seriously wounded is given as 6,500. The total number of houses and other buildings destroyed by both the V-1 and V-2 weapons, including greater London, Antwerp, and Liège, amounted to about 33,700. The V-2 was designed for use against cities and the only known pin-point tactical application was when 11 were fired against the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen, Germany, during March 1945 in a German attempt to prevent the Allies from continuing to use the bridge after it had been inadvertantly seized by American troops on 7 March. A couple of missiles came remarkably close but did not hit the bridge. The last V-2 fired in combat took place on 29 March 1945.

Following the war, in an effort to acquire the know how of this clearly revolutionary new technology, the U.S. and other Allies scrambled to capture as much V-2 hardware, documents, and V-2 technicians as they could. This included the British, French and Soviets. The British, under Operation Backfire, succeeded in examining and experimentally test launching, with the assistance of German technicians, three V-2 rockets. The Backfire launches took place in the British zone of occupation, at a former Krupp armament proving ground at Altenwalde, near Cuxhaven, Germany, on the North Sea coast. The launches were made on 2, 3, and 15 October 1945. The last launch was known as Operation Clitterhouse and included foreign (U.S., French, and Soviet) observers. The data acquired from all the launches and contained in five illustrated manuals was shared with the U.S. The French obtained the services of Wolfgang Pilz and other V-2 researchers who helped them build their first liquid-fuel missiles. The French Veronique sounding rocket, which outwardly resembled the V-2, also resulted from these efforts.

On 5 May 1945, the Soviets captured Peenemünde, though it was largely destroyed or stripped of useful material by the evacuating Germans. The Soviets did, however, seize invaluable material from Nordhausen, which they occupied on 5 July, and set up rocket institutes in the region and reconstructed a number of V-2s in the repair facility of the Mittelwerk at Kleinbodungen. The top ranking man recruited by the Soviets was Helmut Gröttrup, an expert from Peenemünde in guidance and control. In October 1946, thousands of German engineers, scientists, technicians, and their families were forcibly deported to the USSR, among them several hundred members and their families from the East German rocket institutes. The Soviets already had considerable experience since the 1930s in the design and construction of liquid-fuel rockets, but like the Americans and others, they lacked experience in handling liquid-fuel rockets of the size of the V-2. The Russians launched their first reconstructed V-2 on 30 October 1947 at Kapustin Yar, 75 miles east of Stalingrad (now Volgograd).

They sought to greatly improve upon basic V-2 technology and from the later 1940's to early 1950's constructed several V-2 derivative engines. They also created about ten or more derivative V-2 rockets which included the R-1 (also designated 1R), V-1A (1VA), V-1C, V-1B (1VB), V-1E (1VE), V-1D (1VD), R-2 (2R), V-2A (2VA), and V-2B/C. The majority of the vehicles appear to have been essentially re-built V-2s using similar or much modified engines powered by the same lox-alcohol propellant, though they had successively elongated propellant tanks for "stretched" bodies and larger nose cones. The first successful R-1 launch took place on 17 September 1948, called by the Russians their first "national rocket," although still looking identical to the V-2 with a Meilerwagen as part of the handling equipment. In addition to affording design and handling experience, these rockets were used for upper atmospheric research and were thus called "geophysical rockets." The Soviets also launched numerous animals including rabbits and dogs for biological studies, with eventual space flight in mind. By the mid-1950s, the Soviets graduated to an entirely different generation of rockets but had clearly learned a great deal from their V-2 experience. It is relevant to note that the first two rockets given to their allies at the time, the Chinese, in 1956, were R-1s followed in 1958 by R-2s, both models obsolete V-2 derivative vehicles known in the West as the SS-1 (Scunner) and SS-2 (Sibling). The Chinese first launched their R-2, using a different fuel, on 5 November 1960 and called it the Dong Feng 1 (East Wind 1). The launch site was at Jiuquan, in the Gobi desert, in Gansu province, 1,000 miles west of Beijing. This was the beginning of the Chinese long-range missile and space launch vehicle development.

The Americans similarly planned to acquire V-2 technology almost as soon as it appeared. On 15 November 1944, a little more than two months after the first V-2s were fired against Paris and London, the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps awarded the General Electric Company a contract to prepare captured V-2's for flight tests and to develop missiles based upon German designs, with the overall name of Project Hermes. Upon the brief occupation of Mittelwerk by the U.S. Army in May1945, before the Soviet Army moved in, parts for about 100 V-2s were shipped to the U.S., including presumably the two that were eventually turned over to the Smithsonian.

During that period, the Americans were also fortunate in the surrender of Wernher von Braun and his key team members. Under Operation Paperclip (originally Operation Overcast), a total of 118 of these men were eventually sent to the U.S. where they were to greatly contribute to the development of ballistic missiles and later space program launch vehicles. Under Hermes, the U.S. used them to gain knowledge and experience in handling large-scale liquid-fuel rockets as well as conduct upper-atmospheric research experiments. To coordinate the experiments, a V-2 Upper Atmosphere Research Panel was established on 16 January 1947.

On 15 March 1946 the static firing of a V-2 took place at the White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, followed on 16 April with the first captured V-2 launch. The first successful land recovery of a V-2 nosecone by parachute was accomplished in February 1947. Altogether, there were 67 flights of V-2's at White Sands as well as at the Long Range Proving Ground, Cape Canaveral, Florida (later, U.S. Air Force Eastern Test Range and Kennedy Space Center). On 17 December 1946, a single stage V-2 reached a record altitude of 116 miles, the highest ever reached alone by this vehicle. The last captured V-2 flight was made at White Sands on 28 June 1951.

In Project Bumper, which comprised eight rounds, the V-2 also served to test the feasibility of a two-stage liquid-fuel rocket. The second stage was the smaller, American-made WAC-Corporal. On 24 February 1949, a V-2/WAC-Corporal rocket reached an altitude of 244 miles and speed of 5,150 miles per hour. The altitude record stood for many years and was perhaps first broken on 20 September 1956 when the first the U.S. Army's three-stage Jupiter-C test missile attained an altitude of 680 miles. On 24 July 1950 Bumper No. 8 was the first rocket successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. In this case the two-stage rocket was fired for velocity in a hypersonic aerodynamics test.

Among other notable V-2 flights were: a launch on 24 October 1946 in which motion picture cameras took films of Earth from a 65 mile altitude and covered 40,000 square miles; a series of flights, starting on 20 February 1947, known as Project Blossom, in which containers with fruit flies and various types of seeds were carried to test the effects of cosmic rays, the canisters with these life forms recovered by parachute; a U.S. Navy-sponsored flight up to 100 miles on 7 March 1947 in which the first photographs of Earth were taken at this height; a shipboard launch (under the name of Operation Sandy) from the U.S. aircraft carrier Midway, in the Atlantic, on 6 September 1947; and attempts to the carry live Air Force Aero Medical Laboratory monkeys, Albert I and II, on 18 June 1948 and 14 June 1949, to test the effects of acceleration and weightlessness. (Albert I who was anesthetized in preparation for the flight unfortunately died before the liftoff due to breathing problems. Albert II survived the flight to 83 miles and withstood peak forces of 5.5 g during acceleration as well as the brief period zero-gravity, but the parachute on the return capsule was defective and the high-speed descent of the capsule was fatal. Two other monkeys met the same fate.)

Acquisition

The Museum's specimen and another V-2 (now in La Coupole, in Wizernes, France) were part of the almost 1,400 enemy and Allied war time artifacts that were especially collected for the then National Air Museum under the direction of General of the Army Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, as "outstanding examples of aircraft and components" from World War II. The Air Force made the official transfer on 1 May 1949. In the meantime, the V-2s and the other artifacts were stored in a former plant of the Douglas Aircraft Company at Park Ridge, Illinois, at the present site of O'Hare International Airport, northwest of Chicago.

The actual history of the Army Air Forces' acquisition of both V-2s may never be known due to the loss of relevant documents. From an available photo of this specimen at Park Ridge, ca. 1948, showing the rocket in its combat camouflage colors, the vehicle was clearly an operational round, although as a result of the restoration of 1975-76, it now carries the black-and-white test-flight scheme similar to the one used on the rocket's first successful flight of 3 October 1942. The alternate black and white patterns of the fins aided tracking and determining the rocket's attitude during test launches. The "Woman in the Moon" logo of the original A-4/V4 was not painted on the NASM artifact, however.

Because of the enormous logistical problems and limited manpower available to handle all the Park Ridge material, not until late November 1954 did the V-2s travel by train from Chicago to Washington, D.C. They were then trucked to the Museum's storage facility at Suitland, Maryland, by February 1955. It was not until 1975 that the better of the two rockets underwent restoration, entailing 2,000 man-hours of work in preparation for the new National Air and Space Museum, which opened for the Bicentennial celebration on 1 July 1976. However, the display rocket lacked key parts. The thrust ring, graphite exhaust vanes, servo motors, potentiometers, chain and sprocket drive for the movements of the air rudders, and other tail section components, were provided by the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon, England, while the launch stand (A19761038000) came from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama. A section of one of the fins of the Museum's V-2 is purposely removed to permit viewing of the chain and sprocket drive.

The V-2 was normally carried into combat on a rocket trailer and hauled and erected into its upright vertical firing position by a Meilerwagen. There was also an array of related ground support vehicles which included a heavily armored fire control vehicle that ran on tank tracks, a tractor-pulled liquid oxygen transporter, and alcohol tankers. The Museum does not possess a Meilerwagen nor other V-2 support equipment in its collections.

The V-2 on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum represents one of about twenty-one known examples of this rocket worldwide. Other extant V-2 rockets are at the following locations:

Australian Army Headquarters, Holsworthy, New South Wales

Australian War Memorial, Canberra

Point Cook Royal Australian Air Force Base, near Melbourne, Australia

La Coupole, Wizernes, France.

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

Luftwaffenmuseum, Berlin, Germany

Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung, Koblenz, Germany

Legermuseum, Delft, The Netherlands

The Aerospace Museum, Cosford, U.K.

The Defence Explosive Ordnance Explosive Disposal School, Chattendon, U.K.

The Imperial War Museum, London, U.K.

Ministry of Technology Rocket Propulsion Establishment, Westcott, U.K.

The RAF Museum, Hendon (London), U.K.

The Science Museum, London, U.K.

Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas

Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, Hutchinson, Kansas

U.S. Air Force Museum, Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, Ohio

U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama

White Sands Missile Range, near Alamogordo, New Mexico

Bibliography

Becklake, John, "Conservation of the German WW II Rocket Collection at the Aerospace Museum, Cosford, England," paper presented at the 49th International Astronautical Congress, 28 Sept. 2-Oct. 1998, Melbourne, Australia.

Béon, Yves. Planet Dora. Edited with an Introduction by Michael J. Neufeld (Boulder, CO, 1997).

DeVorkin, David H., Science with a Vengeance (New York, 1992).

Dornberger, Walter R., V-2 (New York, 1954).

Engle, Eloise and Arnold Lott, Man in Flight - Biomedical Achievements in Aerospace (1979), pp. 91, 93-94.

Garlinski, Josef, Hitler's Last Weapons (New York, 1978).

Harvey, Brian, The Chinese Space Programme (Chichester, 1998), pp. 5-6, 11-12.

Hölsken, Dieter, V-Missiles of the Third Reich - The V-1 and V-2 (Sturbridge, Mass., 1994) (Original edition: Die V-Waffen (Stuttgart, 1984)).

Huzel, Dieter, Peenemünde to Canaveral (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,1962).

Irving, David, The Mare's Nest (Boston, 1965).

Kennedy, Gregory P., Vengeance Weapon 2 (Washington, D.C., 1983).

Ley, Willy, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (New York, 1959, and other edit.), pp. 290-294, 458-459.

Michel, Jean, Dora (New York, 1979).

Neufeld, Michael J., The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York, 1995).

Ordway, III, Frederick I. and Mitchell R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York, 1979).

Ordway, III, Frederick I. and Ronald C. Wakeford, International Missile and Spacecraft Guide (New York, 1960), pp. 9, 70-72. 182-185.

Reisig, Gerhard H.R., Raketenforschung in Deutschland (Münster, 1997).

Winter, Frank H., Rockets into Space (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), pp. 56-60, 62, 76.

Originally written by Frank H. Winter; revised by Michael J. Neufeld, Aug. 3, 2000.

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The German V-2 rocket was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket vehicle, the first long-range ballistic missile, and the ancestor of today's large rockets and launch vehicles.

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Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Arizona Memorial Place, Honolulu, HI

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When: December 7, 1941

What: Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Why: Japan was facing economic sanctions and US opposition to its expansion in Asia.

source:https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pearl-harbor-december-7-1941

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Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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The National WWII Museum commemorates the Day That Will Live in Infamy through articles, oral histories, artifacts, and more.

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1942-1945

The Tuskegee Airmen trained in the Great Lakes after graduation.

Nearly 200 planes crashed into the Great Lakes during WW.2

https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/18aviatorsdown/history.html

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US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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World War II Aircraft Lost in the Great Lakes: Aviators Down: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

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Between June 27 and September 26, 2018, a team surveyed five areas of Lake Huron within and adjacent to Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, searching for lost World War II aircraft.

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July 16, 1945

A plutonium device

The code name for the test was Trinity

The explosion vaporized all buildings in theareas

https://www.afnwc.af.mil/About-Us/History/Trinity-Nuclear-Test/

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The world’s first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos on the Alamogordo Bombing Range.

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September 30, 1928, July 2, 2016

holocaust survivor, author, Nobel Peace Prize winner

elie was 15 when he was captured by the nazis and sent away to a concentration camp.

He is most famous for his book Night, which describes his experiences in the holocaust.

TCI textbook,pagese 426- 427

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Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel, Yiddish: אליעזר װיזעל Eliezer Vizel; September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including , a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In his political activities, he also campaigned for victims of oppression in places like South Africa, Nicaragua, Kosovo, and Sudan. He publicly condemned the 1915 Armenian genocide and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He was described as "the most important Jew in America" by the Los Angeles Times in 2003.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind", stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel delivered a message "of peace, atonement, and human dignity" to humanity. The Nobel Committee also stressed that Wiesel's commitment originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people but that he expanded it to embrace all repressed peoples and races. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.

Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmației), Maramureș, in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, Wiesel's family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from the nearby village of Bocskó. Dodye was active and trusted within the community.

Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel has said his father represented reason, while his mother Sarah promoted faith. Wiesel was instructed that his genealogy traced back to Rabbi Schlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and was a descendant of Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi.

Wiesel had three siblings-older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war, and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.

Imprisonment and orphaning during the Holocaust

In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, thus extending the Holocaust into Northern Transylvania as well. Wiesel was 15, and he, with his family, along with the rest of the town's Jewish population, was placed in one of the two confinement ghettos set up in Máramarossziget ( Sighet), the town where he had been born and raised. In May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, under German pressure, began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where up to 90 percent of the people were killed on arrival.

Immediately after they were sent to Auschwitz, his mother and his younger sister were murdered. Wiesel and his father were selected to perform labor so long as they remained able-bodied, after which they were to be killed in the gas chambers. Wiesel and his father were later deported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Until that transfer, he admitted to Oprah Winfrey, his primary motivation for trying to survive Auschwitz was knowing that his father was still alive: "I knew that if I died, he would die." After they were taken to Buchenwald, his father died before the camp was liberated. In Night, Wiesel recalled the shame he felt when he heard his father being beaten and was unable to help.

Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number "A-7713" on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945, when they were just prepared to be evacuated from Buchenwald.

Post-war career as a writer

After World War II ended and Wiesel was freed, he joined a transport of 1,000 child survivors of Buchenwald to Ecouis, France, where the Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) had established a rehabilitation center. Wiesel joined a smaller group of 90 to 100 boys from Orthodox homes who wanted kosher facilities and a higher level of religious observance; they were cared for in a home in Ambloy under the directorship of Judith Hemmendinger. This home was later moved to Taverny and operated until 1947.

Afterwards, Wiesel traveled to Paris where he learned French and studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne. He heard lectures by philosopher Martin Buber and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and he spent his evenings reading works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Thomas Mann.

By the time he was 19, he had begun working as a journalist, writing in French, while also teaching Hebrew and working as a choirmaster. He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).

In 1946, after learning of the Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Wiesel made an unsuccessful attempt to join the underground Zionist movement. In 1948, he translated articles from Hebrew into Yiddish for Irgun periodicals, but never became a member of the organization. In 1949, he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper L'arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. He began to reconsider his decision after a meeting with the French author François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature who eventually became Wiesel's close friend. Mauriac was a devout Christian who had fought in the French Resistance during the war. He compared Wiesel to " Lazarus rising from the dead", and saw from Wiesel's tormented eyes, "the death of God in the soul of a child". Mauriac persuaded him to begin writing about his harrowing experiences.

Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoir Un di velt hot geshvign ( And the World Remained Silent) in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires. Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, La Nuit, in 1955. It was translated into English as in 1960. The book sold few copies after its initial publication, but still attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with writers such as Saul Bellow.

As its profile rose, Night was eventually translated into 30 languages with ten million copies sold in the United States. At one point film director Orson Welles wanted to make it into a feature film, but Wiesel refused, feeling that his memoir would lose its meaning if it were told without the silences in between his words. Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

United States

In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as foreign correspondent for the Israel daily, Yediot Ahronot. In 1969, he married Austrian Marion Erster Rose, who also translated many of his books. They had one son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel's father.

In the U.S., he eventually wrote over 40 books, most of them non-fiction Holocaust literature, and novels. As an author, he was awarded a number of literary prizes and is considered among the most important in describing the Holocaust from a highly personal perspective. As a result, some historians credited Wiesel with giving the term its present meaning, although he did not feel that the word adequately described that historical event. In 1975, he co-founded the magazine with writer Leonard Fein.

The 1979 book and play The Trial of God are said to have been based on his real-life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct a trial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive towards the Jewish people.

Wiesel also played a role in the initial success of The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski by endorsing it before it became known the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, a hoax.

Wiesel published two volumes of memoirs. The first, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in 1994 and covered his life up to the year 1969. The second, titled And the Sea is Never Full and published in 1999, covered the years from 1969 to 1999.

Political activism

We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations.

Wiesel and his wife, Marion, started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in 1986. He served as chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed the US Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986, spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Sigmund Strochlitz was his close friend and confidant during these years.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum gives the Elie Wiesel Award to "internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity". The Foundation had invested its endowment in money manager Bernard L. Madoff's investment Ponzi scheme, costing the Foundation $15 million and Wiesel and his wife much of their own personal savings.

Support for Israeli government policy

In 1982, at the request of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Wiesel agreed to resign from his position as chairman of a planned international conference on the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Wiesel then worked with the Foreign Ministry in its attempts to get the conference either cancelled or to remove all discussion of the Armenian genocide from it, and to those ends he provided the Foreign Ministry with internal documents on the conference's planning and lobbied fellow academics to not attend the conference.

Following his death, Wiesel was criticised by some for his perceived silence on certain Israeli government policies with regards to the Palestinians. During his lifetime Weisel had deflected questions on the topic, claiming to abstain from commenting on Israel's 'internal debates'. Despite this position, Wiesel had gone on record as supporting the idea of expanding Jewish settlements into the Palestinian territories conquered by Israel during the 6 Day War, such settlements are considered illegal by the international community.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. The Norwegian Nobel Committee described Wiesel as "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression, and racism continue to characterize the world". Wiesel explained his feelings during his acceptance speech:

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.

He received many other prizes and honors for his work, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996.

Wiesel co-founded magazine with Leonard Fein in 1975. They founded the magazine to provide a voice for American Jews. He was also a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.

Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust. As a political activist, he advocated for many causes, including Israel, the plight of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the victims of in South Africa, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, and the Kurds.

In April 1999, Wiesel delivered the speech "The Perils of Indifference" in Washington D.C., criticizing the people and countries who chose to be indifferent while the Holocaust was happening. He defined indifference as being neutral between two sides, which, in this case, amounts to overlooking the victims of the Holocaust. Throughout the speech, he expressed the view that a little bit of attention, either positive or negative, is better than no attention at all.

In 2003, he discovered and publicized the fact that at least 280,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews, along with other groups, were massacred in Romanian-run death camps.

In 2005, he gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the new building of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust History Museum:

I know what people say - it is so easy. Those that were there won't agree with that statement. The statement is: it was man's inhumanity to man. NO! It was man's inhumanity to Jews! Jews were not killed because they were human beings. In the eyes of the killers they were not human beings! They were Jews!

In early 2006, Wiesel accompanied Oprah Winfrey as she visited Auschwitz, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show. On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received a knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

In September 2006, he appeared before the UN Security Council with actor George Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. When Wiesel died, Clooney wrote, "We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt, and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations."

In 2007, Wiesel was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemning Armenian genocide denial, a letter that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to downplay its actions during the Armenian genocide a double killing.

In 2009, Wiesel criticized the Vatican for lifting the excommunication of controversial bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of Saint Pius X. The excommunication was later reimposed.

In June 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they toured the Buchenwald concentration camp. Wiesel was an adviser at the Gatestone Institute. In 2010, Wiesel accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University in Orange County, California. In that role, he made a one-week visit to Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.

In July 2009, Wiesel announced his support to the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka. He said that, "Wherever minorities are being persecuted, we must raise our voices to protest ... The Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities. This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland."

In 2009, Wiesel returned to Hungary for his first visit since the Holocaust. During this visit, Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, met Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and President László Sólyom, and made a speech to the approximately 10,000 participants of an anti-racist gathering held in Faith Hall. However, in 2012, he protested against "the whitewashing" of Hungary's involvement in the Holocaust, and he gave up the Great Cross award he had received from the Hungarian government.

Wiesel was active in trying to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons, stating that, "The words and actions of the leadership of Iran leave no doubt as to their intentions". He also condemned Hamas for the "use of children as human shields" during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict by running an ad in several large newspapers. refused to run the advertisement, saying, "The opinion being expressed is too strong, and too forcefully made, and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers."

Wiesel often emphasized the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and criticized the Obama administration for pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt East Jerusalem Israeli settlement construction. He stated that "Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran ... It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city".

Wiesel held the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University from 1976, teaching in both its religion and philosophy departments. He became a close friend of the president and chancellor John Silber. The university created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. From 1972 to 1976 Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and member of the American Federation of Teachers.

In 1982 he served as the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University. He also co-instructed Winter Term (January) courses at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1997 to 1999 he was Ingeborg Rennert Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Personal life

In 1969 he married Marion Erster Rose, who originally was from Austria and also translated many of his books. They had one son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel's father. The family lived in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-old Holocaust denier Eric Hunt in February 2007, but was not injured. Hunt was arrested the following month and charged with multiple offenses.

In May 2011, Wiesel served as the Washington University in St. Louis commencement speaker.

In February 2012, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performed a posthumous baptism for Simon Wiesenthal's parents without proper authorization. After his own name was submitted for proxy baptism, Wiesel spoke out against the unauthorized practice of posthumously baptizing Jews and asked presidential candidate and Latter-day Saint Mitt Romney to denounce it. Romney's campaign declined to comment, directing such questions to church officials.

Death and aftermath

Wiesel died on the morning of July 2, 2016, at his home in Manhattan, aged 87. After a private funeral service was conducted in honor of him at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, he was buried at the Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, on July 3.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that "With Elie's passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature."

In 2018, antisemitic graffiti was found on the house where Wiesel was born.

Awards and honors

Prix de l'Université de la Langue Française (Prix Rivarol) for The Town Beyond the Wall, 1963.

National Jewish Book Award for Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters, 1973.

Jewish Heritage Award, Haifa University, 1975.

Holocaust Memorial Award, New York Society of Clinical Psychologists, 1975.

Jabotinsky Medal, State of Israel, 1980.

Prix Livre Inter, France, for The Testament, 1980.

Grand Prize in Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son, 1983.

Four Freedom Award for the Freedom of Worship, 1985.

Nobel Peace Prize, 1986.

Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1992

Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1996, presented by Awards Council member Rosa Parks at the Academy's 35th annual Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Norman Mailer Prize, Lifetime Achievement, 2011.

Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, 2012

Honorary degrees

Wiesel had received more than 90 honorary degrees from colleges worldwide.

References

Informational notes

Citations

Speeches and interviews

Elie Wiesel Video Gallery

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel Examines 'Building a Moral Society' in Ubben Lecture, DePauw University, September 21, 1989

"Facing Hate with Elie Wiesel". Bill Moyers. November 27, 1991.

"Elie Wiesel Biography and Interview". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. June 29, 1996.

"Perils of Indifference" Speech by Elie Wiesel, Washington, D.C., Transcript (as delivered), Audio, Video, April 12, 1999.

"Perils of Indifference" Speech by Elie Wiesel, Washington, D.C., Text and Audio, April 12, 1999.

The Kennedy Center Presents: Speak Truth to Power: Elie Wiesel, PBS, October 8, 2000.

An Evening with Elie Wiesel. Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies. UCTV (University of California). August 19, 2002

Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular, PBS, October 24, 2002.

Diamante, Jeff (July 29, 2006), "Elie Wiesel on his beliefs", The Star, Toronto, archived from the original on June 2, 2008.

Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Elie Wiesel from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 24, 2007.

"'We must not forget the Holocaust'". Today (BBC Radio 4). September 15, 2008. BBC. BBC Radio 4.

"A conversation with Elie Wiesel". Charlie Rose. June 8, 2009. PBS. Archived from the original on June 13, 2009.

"Unmasking Evil - Elie Wiesel, featuring Soledad O'Brien, 2009". Oslo Freedom Forum 2009. 2010. Oslo Freedom Forum.

"Elie Wiesel on the Leon Charney Report (Segment)". The Charney Report. 2006. WNYE-TV.

"Elie Wiesel on the Leon Charney Report". The Charney Report. 2006. WNYE-TV.

Further reading

Burger, Ariel (2018). Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-1328802699.

Chighel, Michael (2015). "Hosanna! Eliezer Wiesel's Correspondence with the Lubavitcher Rebbe" (online book). Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.

Doblmeier, Martin (2008). The Power of Forgiveness (Documentary). Alexandria, VA: Journey Films. Archived from the original on September 8, 2008.

Friedman, John S. (Spring 1984). "Elie Wiesel, The Art of Fiction No. 79". The Paris Review. Spring 1984 (91).

Rota, Olivier. Choisir le français pour exprimer l'indicible. Elie Wiesel, in Mythe et mondialisation. L'exil dans les littératures francophones, Actes du colloque organisé dans le cadre du projet bilatéral franco-roumain " Mythes et stratégies de la francophonie en Europe, en Roumanie et dans les Balkans ", programme Brâcuşi des 8-9 septembre 2005, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2006, pp. 47-55. Re-published in Sens, dec. 2007, pp. 659-668.

External links

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

Works by Elie Wiesel at Open Library

Appearances on C-SPAN

Biography on The Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity

Elie Wiesel on Nobelprize.org

"Free At Last: Elie Wiesel, Plainclothes Nuns, and Breakthroughs - Or Witnessing a Witness of History", pp. 19-21 in 'Spirit of America, Vol. 39: Simple Gifts', La Crosse, WI: DigiCOPY, 2017, Essay by David Joseph Marcou about his meeting Mr. Wiesel and being official Viterbo U. Photographer for Elie Wiesel Day at Viterbo U., 9-26-06, in Book by DJ Marcou on Missouri J-School Library Web-page of David Joseph Marcou's works [1]

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Luminaries - Jewish Nobel Prize Winners, on the Beit Hatfutsot-The Museum of the Jewish People Website.

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Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel, Yiddish: אליעזר װיזעל Eliezer Vizel; September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including , a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

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1939

The soldiers had fought in every theater of war, providing manpower and resources.

A VC winner from elsewhere in the Empire was Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, of the Fiji Military Forces, who earned this highest of all commendations in June 1944, at Bougainville.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/colonies_colonials_01.shtml

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1942 to 1946

In Europe, to organize a project was organized to exploit the newly recognized fission process for military purposes.

Uranium-235, the essential fissile component of the postulated bomb, cannot be separated from its much more abundant natural companion, Uranium-238.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project

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Manhattan Project | Definition, Scientists, Timeline, Locations, Facts, & Significance

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Manhattan Project, U.S. government research project (1942–45) that produced the first atomic bombs. The project’s name was derived from its initial location at Columbia University, where much of the early research was done. The first bomb was exploded in a test at Alamogordo air base in southern New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

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1941-1942

Germans ordered Jews in the ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands. They also required many Jews to carry out forced labor for the German Reich.

Final solution: the plan to murder all European Jews, beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos

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Origin of the Term "Ghetto"

The term "ghetto" originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy. Venetian authorities compelled the city's Jews to live in the quarter, which was established in 1516. In the 16th and 17th centuries, officials ranging from local authorities to the Austrian emperor ordered the creation of ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities.

Ghettos during World War II

During World War II, the SS and other German occupation authorities concentrated urban and sometimes regional Jewish populations in ghettos. Living conditions were miserable. Ghettos were often enclosed districts that isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,143 ghettos in the occupied eastern territories. There were three types of ghettos:

closed ghettos

open ghettos

destruction ghettos

German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in occupied Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939. The largest ghetto in occupied Poland was the Warsaw ghetto. In Warsaw, more than 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the east.

The Germans ordered Jews in the ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands. They also required many Jews to carry out forced labor for the German Reich. Nazi-appointed Jewish councils ( Judenraete) administered daily life in the ghettos. A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils. This included facilitating deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill those Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders.

Ghettos and the "Final Solution"

In many places, ghettoization lasted a short time. Some ghettos existed for only a few days. Others lasted for months or years. The Germans saw the ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options for the removal of the Jewish population.

With the implementation of the " Final Solution" (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them. Jews were deported to killing centers. German SS and police authorities also deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps.

In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz.

Resistance in the Ghettos

Jews responded with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently smuggled food, medicine, weapons, or intelligence across the ghetto walls. These and other such activities often took place without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. On the other hand, some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the smuggling because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive.

The Germans generally showed little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls. However, they often saw a "security threat" in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education.

In the very beginning, my mother and several other women organized a clandestine school for children who were below the age of work, and it was a wonderful thing because we had something to look forward to
- Charlene Schiff

In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos.

Ghettos in Hungary

In Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944 after the German invasion and occupation. In less than three months, the Hungarian gendarmerie, coordinating with German deportation experts from the Reich Main Office for Security, concentrated nearly 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary except for the capital city, Budapest. They forced the Jews into short-term "destruction ghettos" and then deported them into German custody at the Hungarian border. The Germans deported most of the Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

In Budapest, Hungarian authorities required Jews to confine themselves to marked houses (so-called Star of David houses). On October 15, 1944, leaders of the fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power in a German-sponsored coup. A few weeks later, the Arrow Cross government formally established a ghetto in Budapest. About 63,000 Jews lived in this 0.1 square mile area. Approximately 25,000 Jews who carried certificates indicating they were under the protection of a neutral power were confined in an "international ghetto" in the city. In January 1945, Soviet forces liberated that part of Budapest in which the two ghettos were located and liberated the nearly 90,000 Jewish residents.

Last Edited: Dec 4, 2019

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Ghettos separating Jews from the rest of the population were part of the Nazi plan to destroy Europe's Jews. Read about ghettoization during the Holocaust.

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1943

Jewish units fought the Germans in city ghettos and behind the front lines in the forests.

As many as 10,000 Jews survived the war by taking refuge with Jewish partisan units.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/armed-jewish-resistance-partisans

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Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists. Despite great obstacles (such as lack of armaments and training, conducting operations in a hostile zone, reluctance to leave families behind, and the ever-present Nazi terror), many Jews throughout German-occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans. As individuals and in groups, Jews engaged in opposition to the Germans and their Axis partners. Jewish resistance units operated in France, Belgium, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Poland. Jews also fought in general French, Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, and Soviet resistance organizations.

Armed Jewish Resistance in Eastern Europe

In eastern Europe, Jewish units fought the Germans in city ghettos and behind the front lines in the forests. While most Jewish armed resistance began in 1943, it should be noted that the general resistance movements in the region, operating under more favorable circumstances and with a more sympathetic local population, also did not start until 1943.

Despite minimal support and even antisemitic hostility from the surrounding population, thousands of Jews battled the Germans in eastern Europe. Resistance units emerged in over 100 ghettos in Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Jews resisted when the Germans attempted to establish ghettos in a number of small towns in eastern Poland in 1942. Revolts took place in Starodubsk, Kletsk, Lachva, Mir, Tuchin, and several other towns. As the Germans liquidated the major ghettos in 1943, they met with armed Jewish resistance in Krakow (Cracow), Bialystok, Czestochowa, Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, as well as a major uprising in Warsaw. Thousands of Jews escaped from the ghettos and joined partisan units in nearby forests. Jews from Minsk, for example, established seven partisan fighting units. Jews from Vilna, Riga, and Kovno also formed resistance units.

In western Belorussia, the western Ukraine, and eastern Poland, family camps were established in which Jewish civilians repaired weapons, made clothing, cooked for the fighters, and assisted Soviet partisan operations. As many as 10,000 Jews survived the war by taking refuge with Jewish partisan units. The camp established by Tuvia Bielski in the Naliboki Forest in 1942, for example, gave refuge to more than 1,200 Jews.

There were even uprisings in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz during 1943-1944.

Armed Jewish Resistance in Western Europe

In France, the "Armée Juive" (Jewish Army), a French Jewish partisan group, was founded in Toulouse in January 1942. Composed of members of Zionist youth movements, the Jewish Army operated in and around Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, and Paris. Its members smuggled money from Switzerland into France to assist Jews in hiding, smuggled at least 500 Jews and non-Jews into neutral Spain, and took part in the 1944 uprisings against the Germans in Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse. "Solidarité," a Jewish Communist unit, also carried out attacks on German personnel in Paris. Many Jews joined the general French resistance as well.

In Belgium, a combined Jewish and non-Jewish resistance unit (also named "Solidarité") derailed a deportation train in April 1943. On July 25, 1942, Jewish resisters attacked and burned the files of the organization that the Nazis had forced on the Jews of Belgium. Jews were also active in the Dutch and Italian underground movements.

The impact of armed Jewish resistance should not be exaggerated. It did little to stop the Nazi apparatus from implementing the mass murder of the Jews. Most Jewish resistance to the Nazis focused on rescue, escape, aid to those in hiding, and spiritual resistance. Nevertheless, organized armed resistance was the most direct form of Jewish opposition to the Nazis.

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Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists.

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1942

Internment camps were typically surrounded by barbed wire, patrolled by armed guards, and 10,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated.

The attack on Pearl Harbor fueled widespread fear and distrust of Japanese Americans, leading to the belief that they might be spies or saboteurs.

https://www.nps.gov/manz/learn/historyculture/japanese-americans-at-manzanar.htm

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"We had about one week to dispose of what we owned, except what we could pack and carry for our departure by bus...for Manzanar." William Hohri

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, led the United States into World War II and radically changed the lives of 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry living in the United States. The attack intensified racial prejudices and led to fear of potential sabotage and espionage by Japanese Americans among some in the government, military, news media, and public. In February, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War to establish Military Areas and to remove from those areas anyone who might threaten the war effort. Without due process, the government gave everyone of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast only days to decide what to do with their houses, farms, businesses, and other possessions. Most families sold their belongings at a significant loss. Some rented their properties to neighbors. Others left possessions with friends or religious groups. Some abandoned their property. They did not know where they were going or for how long. Each family was assigned an identification number and loaded into cars, buses, trucks, and trains, taking only what they could carry. Japanese Americans were transported under military guard to 17 temporary assembly centers located at racetracks, fairgrounds, and similar facilities in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona. Then they were moved to one of 10 hastily built relocation centers. By November, 1942, the relocation was complete.

Life at Manzanar
Ten war relocation centers were built in remote deserts, plains, and swamps of seven states; Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Manzanar, located in the Owens Valley of California between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Inyo mountains on the east, was typical in many ways of the 10 camps.

About two-thirds of all Japanese Americans interned at Manzanar were American citizens by birth. The remainder were aliens, many of whom had lived in the United States for decades, but who, by law, were denied citizenship.

The first Japanese Americans to arrive at Manzanar, in March 1942, were men and women who volunteered to help build the camp. On June 1 the War Relocation Authority (WRA) took over operation of Manzanar from the U.S. Army.

The 500-acre housing section was surrounded by barbed wire and eight guard towers with searchlights and patrolled by military police. Outside the fence, military police housing, a reservoir, a sewage treatment plant, and agricultural fields occupied the remaining 5,500 acres. By September 1942 more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were crowded into 504 barracks organized into 36 blocks. There was little or no privacy in the barracks-and not much outside. The 200 to 400 people living in each block, consisting of 14 barracks each divided into four rooms, shared men's and women's toilets and showers, a laundry room, and a mess hall. Any combination of eight individuals was allotted a 20-by-25-foot room. An oil stove, a single hanging light bulb, cots, blankets, and mattresses filled with straw were the only furnishings provided.

Coming from Los Angeles and other communities in California and Washington, Manzanar's internees were unaccustomed to the harsh desert environment. Summer temperatures soared as high as 110ºF. In winter, temperatures frequently plunged below freezing.

Throughout the year strong winds swept through the valley, often blanketing the camp with dust and sand. Internees covered knotholes in the floors with tin can lids, but dust continued to blow in between the floorboards until linoleum was installed in late 1942.
"...one of the hardest things to endure was the communal latrines, with no partitions; and showers with no stalls." Rosie Kakuuchi

Overcoming Adversity
Internees attempted to make the best of a bad situation. The WRA formed an advisory council of internee-elected block managers. Internees established churches, temples, and boys and girls clubs. They developed sports, music, dance, and other recreational programs; built gardens and ponds; and published a newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press.

Most internees worked in the camp. They dug irrigation canals and ditches, tended acres of fruits and vegetables, and raised chickens, hogs, and cattle. They made clothes and furniture for themselves and camouflage netting and experimental rubber for the military. They served as mess hall workers, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and teachers.

Professionals were paid $19 per month, skilled workers received $16, and nonskilled workers got $12. Many pooled their resources and created a consumer cooperative that published the Manzanar Free Press and operated a general store, beauty parlor, barbershop, and bank. As the war turned in America's favor, restrictions were lifted, and Japanese Americans were allowed to leave the camps. Church groups, service organizations, and some camp administrators helped find sponsors and jobs in the Midwest and the East. From all 10 camps, 4,300 people received permission to attend college, and about 10,000 were allowed to leave temporarily to harvest sugar beets in Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.

A total of 11,070 Japanese Americans were processed through Manzanar. From a peak of 10,046 in September 1942, the population dwindled to 6,000 by 1944. The last few hundred internees left in November 1945, three months after the war ended. Many of them had spent three-and-a-half years at Manzanar.

The removal of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast was based on widespread distrust of their loyalty after Pearl Harbor. Yet, no Japanese Americans were charged with espionage.
"Manzanar has its first gold star mother. We had dreaded the day when some family in Manzanar would receive the fateful telegram...." Manzanar Free Press article on Pfc. Frank Arikawa's death

Loyalty and Service
About 5,000 Japanese Americans were serving in the U.S. Army when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The U.S. military soon called for another 5,000 volunteers from the mainland and Hawaii. In January 1942, however, the Selective Service reclassified Japanese Americans as "enemy aliens" and stopped drafting them.

Emotions were intense during 1942 as the United States entered the war and Japanese Americans were moved to the relocation centers. Various protests and disturbances occurred at some centers over political differences, wages, and rumors of informers and black marketing. At Manzanar two people were killed and 10 were wounded by military police during the "Manzanar Riot" in December 1942.

Tensions intensified in 1943 when the government required internees to answer a "loyalty questionnaire." They were asked if they would serve in combat and if they would swear unqualified allegiance to the United States. Some older internees answered "no" because they were not allowed to become U.S. citizens. Others refused to serve while their families were behind barbed wire. Those who answered "yes" were considered "loyal" and became eligible for indefinite leave outside the West Coast military areas. Those who answered "no" were sent to a segregation center at Tule Lake, Calif.

In January 1944 the draft was reinstated for Japanese Americans. Most of those who were drafted or volunteered joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Combined with the 100th Infantry Battalion of the Hawaiian Territorial Guard, the 442nd fought with distinction in North Africa, France, and Italy. With 9,846 casualties, the 100th/442nd had the highest casualty rate and was the most highly decorated Army unit for its size and length of service. Nearly 26,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II.
Chronology
1869 First known Japanese immigrants to U.S. settle near Sacramento.

1913 Alien Land Law prohibits Japanese aliens from owning land in California and imposes a three-year limit on leasing of land.

1924 Immigration Exclusion Act halts Japanese immigration to U.S.

1941 U.S. enters World War II after Pearl Harbor attack Dec. 7.

1942 Executive Order 9066 of Feb.19 authorizes relocation and/or internment of anyone who might threaten the U.S. war effort.

1943 U.S. Army forms 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit for Japanese Americans that serves with 100th Infantry Battalion in Europe.

1944 Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of evacuation based solely on national ancestry while separately ruling that loyal citizens cannot be held against their will.

1945 World War II ends with Japan's surrender Aug. 14. Manzanar War Relocation Center closes Nov. 21.

1952 Walter-McCarran Immigration and Naturalization Act allows Japanese aliens to become naturalized citizens. 1972Manzanar designated a California Registered Historical Landmark.

1988 U.S. Civil Liberties Act grants a $20,000 payment and an apology to 82,000 former internees.

1992 Manzanar National Historic Site established March 3.

2001 Minidoka Internment National Monument designated Jan. 17 in Idaho. National Japanese American Memorial dedicated June 29 in Washington, D.C.

2004 Manzanar National Historic Site Interpretive Center opens April 24.

Additional Resources

While not a program of the National Park Service, the Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium (JACSC) is comprised of organizations committed to collectively preserving, protecting, and interpreting the history of the World War II experiences of Japanese Americans and elevating the related social justice lessons that inform issues today. Members include former confinement sites, as well as historical organizations, endowments, museums, commissions, and educational institutes.

Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) grants are awarded to preserve and interpret U.S. Confinement Sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. Grants are awarded to organizations and entities preserving Japanese American confinement sites and their history, including: private nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and state, local, and tribal governments, and other public entities.

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Japanese Americans at Manzanar - Manzanar National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

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"We had about one week to dispose of what we owned, except what we could pack and carry for our departure by bus...for Manzanar." William Hohri Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, led the United States into World War II and radically changed the lives of 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry living in the United States.

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Fucilazione di Benito Mussolini, Azzano, Province of Como, Italy

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Oct. 3, 1935

Italy invaded and conquered Ethiopia, eventually establishing Italian East Africa.

Italian colonial power in Africa sought revenge for an earlier defeat at the Battle of Adowa in 1896, and boost national prestige.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Italo-Ethiopian-War-1935-1936

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Italo-Ethiopian War, (1935-36), an armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia's subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers.

Ethiopia (Abyssinia), which Italy had unsuccessfully tried to conquer in the 1890s, was in 1934 one of the few independent states in a European-dominated Africa. A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland that December gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene. Rejecting all arbitration offers, the Italians invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935.

Under Generals Rodolfo Graziani and Pietro Badoglio, the invading forces steadily pushed back the ill-armed and poorly trained Ethiopian army, winning a major victory near Lake Ascianghi (Ashangi) on April 9, 1936, and taking the capital, Addis Ababa, on May 5. The nation's leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, went into exile. In Rome, Mussolini proclaimed Italy's king Victor Emmanuel III emperor of Ethiopia and appointed Badoglio to rule as viceroy.

In response to Ethiopian appeals, the League of Nations condemned the Italian invasion in 1935 and voted to impose economic sanctions on the aggressor. The sanctions remained ineffective because of general lack of support. Although Mussolini's aggression was viewed with disfavour by the British, who had a stake in East Africa, the other major powers had no real interest in opposing him. The war, by giving substance to Italian imperialist claims, contributed to international tensions between the fascist states and the Western democracies. It also served as a rallying point, especially after World War II, for developing African nationalist movements.

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Italo-Ethiopian War | Causes, Summary, & Facts

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Italo-Ethiopian War, an armed conflict in 1935-36 that resulted in Ethiopia's subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers.

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May 7, 1945

unfavorable military situations, political turmoil, and the loss of key leaders had them to the point of surrendering.

to overwhelming military defeats and the complete collapse of their infrastructure and morale, which they giving up.

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-europe/german-surrender.html

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September 1945

After being defeated by the United States and other Allied powers

Due to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/september-2/japan-surrenders

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Japan surrenders, bringing an end to WWII | September 2, 1945 | HISTORY

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Japan formally surrenders to the Allies aboard the USS Missouri, bringing an end to World War II.

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1943 and 1944

designed to knock down low-flying Allied aircraft using a blast of air instead of projectiles.

aimed to knock down low-flying Allied aircraft by ejecting a powerful blast of air.

https://www.nevingtonwarmuseum.com/wind-cannon.html

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Like the Vortex Gun, the Wind Cannon was also developed by a factory in Stuttgart during the war. It was a type of gun that would eject a jet of compressed air against enemy aircraft. It consisted of…

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1941

fill rat carcasses with plastic explosives and place them near boiler rooms, hoping they would be thrown into the fires, causing explosions.

as a weapon to be used against German forces.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/soe_gallery_05.shtml

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1940

The German Army quickly swept through the country, and Allied troops found themselves surrounded in Dunkirk.

because Allied forces, including the British Expeditionary Force, were trapped by the German invasion of France and Belgium in May.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dunkirk-evacuations

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Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk, involved the rescue of more than 338,000 British and French soldiers from the French port of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The evacuation, sometimes referred to as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was a big boost for British morale. Prime Minister Winston Churchill recognised however that the greatest challenge still lay ahead, as Nazi ambitions now turned toward Britain.

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What you Need to Know about the Dunkirk Evacuations

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In May 1940, the Allies teetered on the edge of catastrophe. The German invasion of France had pushed the British Expeditionary Force, with French and Belgian troops, back to the French port of Dunkirk - destruction awaited if a rescue operation was not mounted from across the Channel.