1941

March: Ben and family leave Krakow for Niepolomice
SS murder squads (Finsatzgruppen) begin operations in Poland
Japanese attack US at Pearl Harbor
US/Great Britain declare war on Japan
Hitler declares war on US
The MV Struma leaves Romania for Palestine carrying 769 Jews but British deny permission for the passengers to disembark. It sails back into the Black Sea and is sunk by a Russian submarine as an “enemy target”
Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon B gas begin at Auschwitz Birkenau with the bodies being buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow