Calendar of remembrance · May
Anniversaries in May: 12 events connected with Nazism, the Second World War, the Holocaust, occupation, resistance, liberation and the accountability of perpetrators. Each entry leads to an institutional source and, where the connection is documented, also to profiles in the Nazi Report archive.
On 4 May 1942, the SS carried out the first selection at Birkenau, after which the selected prisoners were murdered in a gas chamber.
The event was part of the development of Auschwitz II-Birkenau as a site of mass murder.
A precise, unsensational account of the selection preserves the victims' agency while clearly identifying the perpetrators.
Institutional source: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 4–5 May 1945, American troops liberated the Gunskirchen camp in Austria.
Gunskirchen is among the lesser-known sites associated with the end of the war.
Remembering this date broadens the memory of camp liberations beyond the best-known names.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 7 May 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender in Reims, which took effect on 8 May.
The sequence of the signing and the instrument's entry into force contributes to differing traditions for dating the end of the war in Europe.
Reims helps explain why European commemorations of the war's end fall on different days.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 8 May 1945, the second instrument of Germany's surrender was signed in Berlin, ending the war in Europe.
The surrender ended the European stage of the conflict after years of occupation, although the war in the Pacific continued.
The date connects the military end of the Third Reich with the need to remember the consequences of German occupation.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 10 May 1933, books deemed “un-German” by the Nazis were publicly burned in many German cities.
The attack on culture served censorship and the symbolic removal of unwanted voices from the public sphere.
The book burnings show the path from persecuting ideas and creative work to persecuting people.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 10 May 1940, Germany attacked France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, while Churchill became prime minister of the United Kingdom.
On the same day, a new stage of blitzkrieg began and one of the Allied states changed its leadership.
The coincidence of these events shows the military turning point in the West and the simultaneous change in British leadership.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 13 May 1939, the St. Louis sailed from Hamburg carrying Jewish refugees who were later denied safe refuge.
The route from Hamburg across the Atlantic towards Cuba became a story about the restrictions of refugee policy.
The individual fates of the passengers reveal the human consequences of decisions to deny protection.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryFrom 15 May to 9 July 1944, approximately 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary, mainly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The operation was marked by the rapid pace of the transports, selections in the camp and the participation of the Hungarian administration.
This operation reveals how an efficient state apparatus enabled mass deportations to be carried out rapidly.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 16 May 1943, the Germans destroyed the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street and declared that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had been suppressed.
The destruction of the synagogue was intended to mark the symbolic conclusion of the German operation against the insurgents.
It was the symbolic end of the battle, but not the end of Jewish resistance or efforts to remain in hiding.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 16 May 1944, the railway ramp inside Birkenau went into operation, intensifying the direct transport of deportees to the gas chambers.
The ramp's opening coincided with the mass deportations of Jews from Hungary.
The ramp shows the importance of transport infrastructure in the organisation of mass murder.
Institutional source: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 27 May 1942, Czechoslovak paratroopers attacked Reinhard Heydrich in Prague as part of Operation Anthropoid.
The consequences of the attack lead to the history of the German reprisal crime at Lidice.
The event connects armed resistance to the occupier with the terror later directed against civilians.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entryOn 29 May 1938, Hungary adopted its first comprehensive anti-Jewish law, restricting Jewish participation in the economy.
Persecution of the Jewish population also developed beyond Germany's borders.
The law shows that the legal exclusion of Jews had a broader European reach.
Institutional source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Permanent link to this entry