August 14, 1942:
- "The entire Jewish community from Gorlice, Poland, is deported to the Belzec extermination camp.
August 14-15: "A woman named Rivka Yosselevska is one of just four Jews to survive a bloody burial-pit massacre outside Zagrodski, Poland, near Pinsk."
"Swedish Prince Gustavus Adolphus visits Germany in 1942.
Swedish policy was mildly pro-German until February 1943, when the German advance in Russia was stopped at Stalingrad--a crucial turning point in World War II.
At that point, the Swedes and most Europeans felt that the Allies would win the war.
As a result, Sweden decided to accept Jewish refugees. In October 1943 the country opened its doors to roughly 10,000 Danish Jews."
August 15, 1942:
- "The Germans open Jawiszowice, a slave-labor camp located near Auschwitz.
- "One thousand Belgian Jews, including 172 children, are deported to their deaths in the East."
"Polish Jews in the Kremenets (Ukraine) Ghetto violently resisted the Nazi deportations.
On September 9, 1942, 1500 Jews, among them the ghetto's leadership, were transported to a ghetto five miles away. Incensed, a young Jew shot and killed six Germans and Ukrainians who were part of the "liquidation squad," forcing the Nazis temporarily to retreat.
The next day another ten Nazis were killed.
On August 11, rather than accept deportation and certain death, the remaining Jews set the ghetto on fire.
Among the buildings destroyed was the ghetto's synagogue, pictured here."
August 16, 1942:
- Mid-August 1942: "A healthy Jewish teenage boy is removed from a deportation train at the Belzec death camp, stripped naked, hung upside down from gallows for three hours, and then killed as camp guards use sticks to force sand down his throat."
"Glimpsing freedom and safety ahead, Jewish refugees cross over the border into Switzerland.
Few were so fortunate as this group since the Swiss, citing their need to protect their neutrality, turned a cold shoulder toward most refugees, especially Jews.
One official referred to his country as a "crowded little lifeboat," and in 1942 the Swiss government instructed border officials to turn back refugees at the French border, essentially dealing death sentences to Jews."