UN adopts the Genocide Convention

The small Jewish displaced-persons camp opened to provide additional space for refugees from the overcrowded Zeilsheim camp. Survivors rebuilt communal life through schools, religious and cultural...

Local residents and members of Polish security forces attacked surviving and returning Jews in Kielce; 42 Jews were killed. The pogrom drew on entrenched antisemitism and blood-libel allegations and...

The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 96(I), declaring genocide a crime under international law and calling for an international convention. Raphael Lemkin’s work and postwar debates drew on Nazi...

More than 4,500 Jewish displaced persons and Holocaust survivors sailed from France toward British-mandate Palestine aboard the Exodus 1947. British naval forces intercepted the ship on July 18 and...

The State of Israel declared independence as the British Mandate ended. Holocaust survivors were among those who sought refuge and rebuilt lives there, after years of blocked routes and...

West Germany, Israel, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany concluded agreements on compensation for survivors of Nazi persecution and support for Israel’s integration of...

The Knesset passed the Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Law, establishing Yad Vashem as Israel’s Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Authority. The law directed the institution to commemorate Jewish...

Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann, a central organizer of deportations, in Buenos Aires and brought him to Israel for trial. The operation raised questions about Argentina’s sovereignty and the...

The trial of Adolf Eichmann opened in Jerusalem. Prosecutors presented documents and extensive survivor testimony, bringing witnesses’ accounts into international public view. The proceedings helped...

After finding Eichmann guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced him to death. The judgment addressed an organizer...