January
As the only camp west of the German border, the former police detention camp at Herzogenbusch in Holland is placed on an equal level with a concentration camp.
A section for girls between the ages of eight and sixteen is established at the youth custody camp in Lodz. Later, children between the ages of two and six years were sent to the same section.
More and more satellite camps, the so-called "Aussenkommandos," are built outside of the main concentration camps. They are officially designated as labor camps or SS labor camps.
January 20
The Inspector of Concentration Camps advises his commanders to use all resources to reduce the death rate in the camps. At the same time camp doctors give direction that sick and debilitated prisoners are to be killed.
February
1,622,000 prisoners of war and 4,121,000 foreign laborers are working in Germany.
February 20
A section is opened in the Sonderlager (Special Camp) Hinzert to which Polish civilian workers are sent for six months for fraternizing with German women. While there, they are to be examined for their "suitability for Germanization."
February 26
Effective immediately, workers from the east who were only temporarily sent to a concentration camp can no longer be discharged.
February 27
Jewish workers in the armaments industry are arrested at their work stations and deported to Auschwitz with their families.
March
Transports of Jews from Greece to Auschwitz begin.
A political debate on the identification markings for workers from the east begins.
Due to air raids, almost 10,000 foreign laborers become homeless in Essen. Many camps for foreigners are destroyed.
March 11
The RSHA orders that, after the completion of their sentences, Jews are to be taken to the concentration camps Auschwitz or Majdanek/Lublin for the rest of their lives.
March 12
Creation of the SS-owned business "Ostindustrie GmbH" (East Industry, Limited) for the purpose of taking possession of Aryanized businesses in the Lublin district.
March 13
A celebration takes place at Cracow's main railroad station featuring the two thousandth transport of workers from Poland to Germany. The one millionth forced laborer is "honored."
March 22
The new death facilities at Auschwitz begin operation: Crematorium 4 on March 22, Crematorium 2 on March 31, Crematorium 5 on April 4, and Crematorium 3 on June 25.
April 7
Following the termination of transports to Chelmno, traces of the extermination process there are being obliterated.
April 9
Majdanek is officially designated a concentration camp. It contained gas chambers since the fall of 1942, but was not a first-line extermination camp. Instead it was a forced labor camp and, after the establishment of the "Ostindustrie GmbH," a center for the SS's own business venture.
April 11
Central order to the SS doctors in the concentration camps: Prisoners are to be selected anew for the "Euthanasia Program," transferred to Hartheim, and gassed.
April 15
A notice of the RSHA work group on issues pertaining to the treatment of foreigners poses new guidelines for the treatment of foreign laborers. Everything is to be subordinate to the objective of victoriously ending the war.
April 19
At I. G. Farben AG in Ludwigshafen, 85 percent of the workers from the east are used for the heavy or heaviest work and for the specialized work, e.g. in "acid or unclean works."
April 27
General message from the Inspector of Concentration Camps to commanders: Only mentally ill prisoners can be gassed in the "Euthanasia" installations.
April 30
Construction of concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.
May
The chief air raid warden in Essen closes public air raid shelters to foreigners. At Krupp the air raid shelter can accommodate only half of the foreign workers.
May 8
Deaths in concentration camps of workers from the east are to be reported only to the labor offices. No notices are to be issued for deaths in concentration camps.
May 20
A special camp named "Sued" (South) is established in the camp Esterwegen in Emsland for receiving "Nacht und Nebel" (Night and Fog) prisoners.
May 26
In order to veil the deaths, the sequential numbering of deaths reported at the registrar's office of concentration camps is to be halted. A secret code system is to be introduced.
June 11
Himmler orders the Warsaw ghetto to be razed. Also, all ghettoes in Polish or Soviet territories are to be dissolved and the Jews deported to concentration camps.
June 22
The first verifiable gassings take place in the concentration camp Stutthof. The victims are Poles and White Russians.
June 23
All "Jewish residential districts" in Galicia are dissolved. The total number of Jews receiving "Special Treatment" or "being moved out" is 430,329.
June 27
Himmler orders a complicated procedure for the "racial testing" of the newly born children of Polish women and female workers from the east. "Racially inferior" children are to be placed in the simplest kind of care centers for foreign children. The babies die in a short time due to inadequate hygiene, improper nutrition, and lack of care.
June 29
The RSHA enacts a two-step identification marking for workers from the east based on performance. A third step is planned.
July 14
"Step 2" of the identification marking for workers from the east is tied to special allotments.
July 20
Since March 2, there have been twenty transports of Jews from Holland to the extermination camp Sobibor. Of those people, 34,000 died, 19 survived.
July 23
Fritz Sauckel announces further improvements for workers from the east, justified by "excellent conduct" and "in recognition of their performance" in the fight against Bolshevism.
August
Fifty-six men and thirty women are selected in Auschwitz for their skeletons. They are transferred to the concentration camp Natzweiler and gassed. Their bodies are sent to the Anatomical Institute of the University of Strassburg.
The ghettos are "cleared out" in the important industrial cities of Sosnowiec and Bedzin. The inmates of the Polish ghetto Bialystok are deported to Theresienstadt.
The total count of inmates in concentration camps is 224,000 persons. Of these, about 74,000 are in Auschwitz, 26,000 in Sachsenhausen, and 17,000 each in Dachau and Buchenwald.
August 2
Liquidation of the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz- Birkenau: 2,897 men, women, and children are gassed.
Insurrection by prisoners at Treblinka. The extermination facilities, which had been used to murder between 700,000 and 800,000 people, are destroyed.
August 21
At the I. G. Farben factory in Oppau, workers from the east are required to work at least sixty-seven hours per week in swing shifts. Such work hours are required in many businesses.
October
Prisoners are increasingly loaned out as slave laborers to the armaments industry outside of their base camps. By the end of 1943 there are 500 concentration camp satellites assigned to industrial businesses.
"Aktion Reinhard" is officially completed after the disbandment of the three extermination camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka) in the Generalgouvernement.
Start of transports from Italy to Auschwitz.
October 1
During the roundup of Danish and other Jews living in Denmark, 220 people fall into the hands of the Gestapo. About 7,500 Jews are hidden or moved to Sweden by the resistance movement.
October 14
Insurrection by prisoners at Sobibor. The extermination facilities, which had been used to murder more than 250,000 people, are destroyed.
November 22
The work day for prisoners is increased to eleven hours.
December
Foreign laborers working for Germany number 1.16 million from the west, 1.8 million from the east, and 600,000 Italian military internees.
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