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ALBANIA
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- April 7, 1939: Albania was annexed by Italy; Italian anti-Jewish legislation was
implemented.
- September 9, 1943: Albania was occupied by Germany.
- November 21, 1944: Albania was liberated by Albanian partisans.
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ALGERIA
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- June 22, 1940: The French colony of Algeria came under the control of Vichy France's
collaborationist government.
- November 11, 1942: The Allies took control of Algeria.
- March 14, 1943: Anti-Jewish laws were rescinded; Vichy officials were not removed
from their positions, and dozens of Jewish refugees remained interned until the
end of 1944.
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AUSTRIA
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- March 13, 1938: The Anschluss-Austria was annexed into Greater Germany by the Nazi
regime.
- April 13, 1945: The USSR occupied Vienna.
- May 7, 1945: Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies.
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BELGIUM
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- May 10, 1940: Belgium was invaded by Germany.
- May 17-18, 1940: Brussels and Antwerp were occupied by Germany.
- September 3, 1944: Brussels was liberated.
- December 16, 1944: Towns in the Ardennes region were reoccupied by the Germans.
- January 28, 1945: The Ardennes region was liberated by Allied troops.
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BULGARIA
(including western Thrace, eastern Macedonia, Ionian Islands, and Pirot)
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- January 21, 1941: The Kingdom of Bulgaria passed anti-Jewish legislation.
- March 1, 1941: Bulgaria joined the Axis powers.
- September 4, 1944: Bulgaria was liberated.
- October 9, 1944: Bulgaria signed an armistice with the USSR.
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CHANNEL ISLANDS
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- June 30, 1940: The Channel Islands were occupied by Germany.
- May 9, 1945: Jersey and Guernsey were liberated by Great Britain.
- May 16, 1945: German forces in Alderney surrendered to Great Britain.
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CZECHOSLOVAKIA
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- September 30, 1938: The Sudetenland was ceded to Germany.
- October 2, 1938: The Tešin District of Czech Silesia was annexed by Poland.
- November 1938: Southern Carpathian Ruthenia and parts of southern Slovakia were
annexed by Hungary.
- March 15, 1939: Czechoslovakia was divided. The Czech Protectorate encompassed
Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia; Slovakia was allied with Germany, remainder
of Carpathian Ruthenia was annexed by Hungary.
- April 1945: The war ended in Slovakia.
- May 9, 1945: The war ended in the Czech Protectorate.
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DENMARK
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- April 10, 1940: Denmark was occupied by Germany; Denmark was the only occupied country
that did not enact anti-Jewish legislation.
- October 1, 1943: Germans began arrests of Danish Jewry; this was followed by the
mass rescue and escape of Danish Jewry by boat to Sweden.
- May 5, 1945: German forces surrendered to the Allies.
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ESTONIA
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- July 23, 1940: Estonia was annexed by the USSR.
- July 27, 1941: Estonia was occupied by Germany.
- September 22, 1944: After the Germans retreated from Estonia, the USSR took control
of the country.
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FINLAND
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- November 30, 1939: Finland was invaded by the USSR.
- March 12, 1940: Finland surrendered to the USSR.
- June 26, 1941: Finland became an ally of Germany.
- September 4, 1944: Finland signed a peace treaty with the USSR.
- April 25, 1945: German forces were pushed out of the last regions of Finland.
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FRANCE
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- June 22, 1940: Germany occupied the northern half of France and its entire Atlantic
coastline. Collaborationist Vichy took control of southern France.
- November 11, 1942: Germany occupied southern France. Italy took control of
the area east of the Rhône in southeast France.
- September 1943: The Germans occupied Rome and took control of the Italian zone of
France.
- August 25, 1944: Paris was liberated by the Free French Army of Liberation and the
United States of America.
- February 2, 1945: Colmar in Alsace was captured by the Allies, and all of France
was liberated.
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GERMANY
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- January 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi Party took
control of Germany, and it became a totalitarian dictatorship.
- May 7, 1945: Germany surrendered to the Allies; within weeks, the war in Europe
was over.
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GREECE
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- October 28, 1940: Italy attacked Greece.
- April 6-May 11, 1941: The German and Italian invasion of Greece was followed by
the surrender of the Greek army and by the German capture of Greek islands in the
northeastern Aegean Sea. Greece was divided into Italian, Bulgarian, and German
zones.
- June 1, 1941: Crete was occupied by Germany.
- September 9, 1943: Germany occupied the Italian zone of Greece.
- September 1944: Germany evacuated their forces from all of Greece except Rhodes,
Crete, and a few other islands.
- October 14, 1944: Great Britain liberated Athens.
- October 31, 1944: Germany evacuated their forces from Salonika.
- May 9, 1945: The remaining Greek islands under Axis control surrendered to the Allies.
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HUNGARY
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- May 1938: Hungary implemented the first of many anti-Jewish laws.
- November 20, 1940: Hungary joined the Axis powers.
- March 19, 1944: Germany occupied Hungary.
- October 25, 1944: The war ended in Eastern Hungary, including Northern Transylvania.
- November 2, 1944-February 13, 1945: German forces were pushed out of Budapest.
- April 4, 1945: The last German troops were expelled from Hungary.
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ITALY
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- 1938: The Fascist regime began to pass anti-Jewish legislation.
- May 22, 1939: Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed a military alliance, the "Pact
of Steel."
- June 10, 1940: Italy declared war on the Allies.
- July 20, 1943: Sicily was liberated by the United States of America.
- September 8, 1943: Italy signed an armistice with the Allies; Germany occupied the
country.
- October 1, 1943: Naples was liberated by the Allies.
- June 5, 1944: Rome was liberated by the Allies.
- May 2, 1945: The final surrender of German forces in Italy occurred.
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LATVIA
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- June 16, 1940: Latvia was occupied and then annexed by the USSR.
- June/July 1941: Latvia was occupied by Germany.
- July 1, 1941: Riga fell to Germany.
- October 13, 1944: Riga was freed from German control.
- May 12, 1945: German troops in the last occupied area of Latvia, Courland, surrender.
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LITHUANIA
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- March 1939: Germany seized the Memel/Klaipeda region of Lithuania.
- July 23, 1940: Lithuania was occupied and then annexed by the USSR.
- June/July 1941: Lithuania was occupied by Germany.
- July/August 1944: After German troops retreated, the USSR established the Lithuanian
Soviet Socialist Republic.
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LUXEMBOURG
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- May 11, 1940: Luxembourg was occupied by Germany.
- September 10-12, 1944: Luxembourg was liberated by the United States of America.
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LIBYA
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- 1938: The Italian Fascist regime began to pass anti-Jewish laws, which were applied
to Jews in the Italian colony of Libya.
- September 13, 1940: Germany and Italy began the war in North Africa from bases in
Libya.
- January 23, 1943: Libya was liberated by Great Britain and France.
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MOROCCO
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- June 22, 1940: Morocco came under the control of Vichy France's collaborationist
government.
- November 11, 1942: Vichy forces in Morocco surrendered to the United States of America.
- June 1943: Anti-Jewish laws were rescinded.
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THE NETHERLANDS
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- May 15, 1940: The Netherlands was occupied by Germany.
- May 5, 1945: The final liberation of The Netherlands by Canada, Great Britain, and
the United States of America took place.
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NORWAY
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- June 10, 1940: Norway surrendered to Germany.
- May 8, 1945: Norway was liberated by the Allies.
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POLAND
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- September 29, 1939: Poland surrendered and was divided between Germany and the USSR.
- November 1, 1939: Germany annexed Danzig; Germany controlled western Poland, the
district of Danzig, the district of Ciechanów (Zichenau), East Prussia, the
province of Poznań, Łódź, the Polish part of Upper Silesia,
and southwestern Poland, including the cities of Katowice and Oświęcim;
the USSR controlled eastern Poland (under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
adjusted by agreement on September 28, 1939), including all Polish territory east
of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Bug, and San, except for the area around
Wilno (Vilnius), which was given to Lithuania, and the Suwałki region, which
was annexed by Germany.
- January 17, 1945: German troops evacuated from Warsaw. Kraków, Łódź,
and most of the regions of prewar Poland were freed from German control in the following
weeks.
- March 30, 1945: Danzig was freed from German control.
- WESTERN BELARUS (Poland)
- September 17, 1939: Western Belarus was occupied by the USSR.
- June 22, 1941: Germany invaded and occupied all regions of Poland formerly controlled
by the USSR.
- July 3-4, 1944: The USSR regained control of Western Belarus.
- WESTERN UKRAINE (Galicia and Volhynia, Poland)
- November 1939: Western Ukraine was occupied and annexed by the USSR.
- June 1941: Germany invaded and occupied all regions of Poland formerly controlled
by the USSR.
- July 1944: The USSR regained control of Western Ukraine.
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ROMANIA
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- January 22, 1938: Romania implemented the first of many anti-Jewish laws.
- June 28, 1940: Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were annexed.
- August 30, 1940: Northern Transylvania was returned to Hungary.
- September 7, 1940: Dobrogea was returned to Bulgaria.
- November 23, 1940: Romania joined the Axis powers.
- July/August 1941: Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were reclaimed by Romania.
- August 30, 1941: Transnistria—the 10,000-square-mile area between the Bug and Dniester Rivers—was ceded to Romania.
- August 23, 1944: Romania joined the USSR in the war against Germany.
- August 31, 1944: The USSR troops entered Bucharest.
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TUNISIA
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- June 22, 1940: Tunisia came under the control of Vichy France's collaborationist
government.
- November 11, 1942: Tunisia was occupied by Germany and Italy.
- May 12, 1943: Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered to Allied forces. Dozens of Jews
with Italian nationality were interned for several weeks.
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YUGOSLAVIA
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- October 1940: Yugoslavia enacted two anti-Jewish laws.
- April 17, 1941: Axis powers dismembered Yugoslavia; Germany annexed northern and
eastern Slovenia and occupied the Serb Banat; Italy annexed southern Slovenia, occupied
the Yugoslav coastline along the Adriatic Sea (including Montenegro), and attached
Kosovo-Metohija to Albania, which Italy had annexed in April 1939; Hungary annexed
the Backa and Baranja regions in northeastern Yugoslavia.
- SERBIA
- April 17, 1941: Serbia was occupied by Germany.
- October 20, 1944: Belgrade was liberated.
- CROATIA (including Bosnia and Herzegovina)
- June 14, 1941: Croatia became an Axis satellite state.
- May 15, 1945: Croatia surrendered to Great Britain.
- May 15, 1945: All of Yugoslavia had been liberated.
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