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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1944: Desperate Acts |
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pg. 555 |
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Despondent officers of the Wehrmacht sit in the hallway of the Hotel Majestic, their former headquarters, in Paris. The German commander of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, ignored Hitler's order to destroy the city, reasoning that to do so would be valueless as well as destructive. After some fighting, his army surrendered to the first French forces to enter Paris, the Second Armored Division commanded by General Jacques Leclerc, on August 25, 1944. Four years of German rule in France ended with the Wehrmacht outmaneuvered, outgunned, and in full retreat.
Photo: Suddeutscher Verlag Bilderdienst
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Celebrating the long-awaited liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944, jubilant young women embrace an Allied soldier. Speaking to the citizens of the capital, General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French forces, proudly proclaimed: "Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated by her own people."
Photo: Archive Photos
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General Charles de Gaulle leads the victory parade from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs Élysées in Paris on August 26, 1944. A towering symbol of the French will to defeat the Nazis, de Gaulle became premier of the Provisional French government at the end of the month.
Photo: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz
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September 1944: Winston Churchill, a supporter from the start, finally orders the creation of a Jewish Brigade of Palestinian Jews in the British Army. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden continues to object.
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Early September 1944: At Auschwitz, inmate Gisella Perl observes an elderly Dutch Jew hand a work-gang foreman a pouch of diamonds in exchange for a few uncooked potatoes. With trembling hands, the man immediately eats the potatoes.
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September 2, 1944: Approximately 2000 Jews deported from Plaszów, Poland, are gassed to death at Auschwitz.
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September 3, 1944: Brussels, Belgium, is liberated by Allied troops.
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September 3, 1944: The Allies begin air evacuations of Jews from partisan-held regions of Yugoslavia to Allied-occupied Italy.
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September 3, 1944: A senior Italian police officer named Giovanni Palatucci, arrested in the German-held Yugoslavian city of Fiume for aiding Jews, is sent to the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, where he dies.
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| 1944: Desperate Acts |
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pg. 555 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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