First Kindertransport group reaches Britain

A German decree required passports issued to Jews to be marked with a red letter J, following pressure from other states seeking to identify Jewish refugees. The measure shows how Nazi persecution...

German authorities forcibly expelled thousands of Jews who held Polish citizenship, many of whom had lived in Germany for years. Poland initially refused many entry, leaving families stranded at the...

After a Nazi-organized pogrom began on the night of November 9–10, synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses and homes destroyed, and Jewish people assaulted and killed. Police and fire services...

The German government imposed a one-billion-Reichsmark fine on German Jews and ordered the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses. Perpetrators turned mob violence into state-enforced economic...

The Nazi government barred Jewish children from public schools, completing an accelerating process of isolation. Families faced decisions about emigration and children’s safety while other governments...

In a Reichstag speech, Hitler threatened the “annihilation” of Jews in Europe if war came, using antisemitic conspiracy claims to frame Jews as a collective enemy. The speech is evidence of...

German troops occupied the Czech lands and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Jewish residents came under Nazi rule; expansion of the Reich exposed more communities to discriminatory...

The German liner St. Louis left Hamburg carrying more than 900 mostly Jewish refugees seeking safety in Cuba. Cuban authorities denied entry to most passengers; the voyage exposed how immigration...

Britain’s White Paper capped Jewish immigration at 75,000 over five years and proposed ending it thereafter without Arab consent. It constrained refuge as Nazi persecution escalated, within a colonial...

Cuban authorities denied landing to most passengers aboard the St. Louis, despite many holding documents they believed would admit them. After the ship was turned away from the United States, Britain,...