January 2
Himmler and Heydrich plan three categories of concentration camps.
Type 1: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz I For "prisoners in protective custody who are without question capable of improvement," as well as for special cases and for solidary confinements.
Type 2: Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Neuengamme, Auschwitz II For "prisoners in protective custody still capable of improvement."
Type 3: Mauthausen For "prisoners in protective custody who are beyond rehabilitation."
In reality, these divisions essentially played no role.
March 1
Himmler and representatives from I. G. Farben make an on-site visit to Auschwitz to examine the camp's possibilities for expansion. They conclude that the camp can accommodate 10,000 more prisoners for the construction of the Buna-Works.
April
Major ghettos are established in Lublin and Radom.
April 4
"Aktion 14 F 13" (also known as "Invalidenaktion," i.e., program for the handicapped): First documented proof of the murder of specially picked "handicapped" concentration camp prisoners in an extermination facility of the "Euthanasia" Program.
April 14
First mass arrests of Jews in Paris.
May 28
Edict by the RSHA pertaining to work education detention: The maximum period of detention is increased from six to seven weeks. Improvement and specialization was accomplished in between approved disciplinary actions.
September 3
At Auschwitz hundreds of Soviet prisoners of war are murdered during "test gassings" with Zyklon B in Block II (Bunker).
October
Within Germany 2,139,553 foreign workers (including 1,007,561 Poles) are registered.
Within Germany the Gestapo arrests 15,160 persons. This is ten times the yearly quota for protective custody arrests during 1935-36.
Start of plans for a camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau (initially as a prisoner of war camp). Auschwitz II alone occupies an area of 175 hectares (approximately 433 acres); in 1943, it contains 100,000 prisoners, becoming the largest single camp.
Soviet prisoners of war are murdered in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen during "test gassings" in converted vehicles.
Majdanek, later to become a concentration camp, is opened as an SS prisoner of war camp.
October 14
Mass deportations of Jews from Germany to the east (Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Riga) begin.
November
First mass shootings of deported German Jews near Riga.
November 11
700,000 Soviet prisoners of war work in Germany. They are primarily forced laborers for the army and the SS, but some also work in industry.
From Hermann G?g's guidelines on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war: "Procurement of own food (cats, horses, etc.). Clothing, lodgings, subsistence, somewhat better than at home where these people, in part, live in caves."
November 21
Deaths of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps are only being registered on summary lists.
November 24
Theresienstadt, the so-called ghetto for the elderly, is established. It becomes the transit station on the way to the extermination camps for Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and for Jews from Germany (men over sixty-five years old, women over fifty-five years old, children under fourteen years old, Jewish spouses from mixed marriages, and the offspring of mixed marriages).
December
Within Germany 51,000 laborers and 40,000 foreign laborers are arrested during the last six months of 1941 because of "work stoppages" or "breach of labor contracts."
A major ghetto is established in Lemberg (Lvov).
December 8
Gassings start at Chelmno (Kulmhof), the first large camp built exclusively for the mass extermination of human beings. Except for a one- year interruption from March 1943 to April 1944, the camp existed until January 1945.
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