October 22, 1943:
- October 14: "Leon Feldhendler and Jewish Soviet officer Aleksandr Pechersky, interned at the Sobibór death camp since Septem-ber, instigate an inmate revolt and escape, during which 11 German SS guards and two or three Ukrainian SS guards are killed.
Two hundred of 600 Jews in the camp are killed by gunfire and exploding mines; among them is 33-year-old Dutch painter Max Van Dam.
Of the 300 who escape, only 100 are recaptured; many of the remaining 200 escapees join Soviet partisan forces.
Of these, only 50 to 70, including Pechersky, will survive the war; See October 16, 1943. - October 16: "Two days after a violent Jewish revolt at the Sobibór death camp, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the camp destroyed.
- "Germans looking for Jews in Rome conduct house-to-house searches.
About 1,000 Jews are briefly held at Rome's Collegio Militare, then deported to Auschwitz.
477 Jews are sheltered in the Vatican, and another 4238 find sanctuary in convents and monasteries throughout Rome.
Nevertheless, by this date more than 8,300 Italian Jews have been deported to Auschwitz. - "German Ambassador to the Vatican Ernst von Weizsäcker compliments the Holy See for its 'perfect even-handedness' in treating Germany and the Allies.
When Weizsäcker asks what Pope Pius XII will do if the German government persists in its present Jewish policy in Italy, Vatican Secretary of State Maglione replies that 'the Holy See would not want to be put in the position of having to utter a word of disapproval.'
The Pope is being 'cautious so as not to give the German people the impression that [he] has done or has wished to do even the smallest thing against Germany during this terrible war.' - October 17: "A Jewish partisan unit commanded by Abba Kovner destroys two rail engines and two bridges near Vilna, Lithuania.
- "German Ambassador to the Vatican Ernst von Weizsäcker writes to the German Foreign Ministry that the College of Cardinals has been 'particularly dismayed' since the roundup of Jews in Rome is occurring 'below the very windows of the Pope.'
He notes that the Pope continues to do everything he can 'not to burden relations with the German government and German agencies in Rome.' - October 20: "The United Nations War Crimes Commission is established; See October 26, 1943.
- October 21: "During the final Aktion in Minsk, Belorussia, about 2,000 Jews are murdered at Maly Trostinets."
"A Swedish policeman accompanies a newly arrived Danish-Jewish refugee to the welfare office in Rebslagergade, Sweden.
Swedish participation was critical to the success of the rescue operation.
Not only did the government proclaim its willingness to accept all Jewish refugees from Denmark, but the Swedish Red Cross helped save the approximately 500 Danish Jews who were deported to the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto in Czechoslovakia."
- Denmark's Rescue of Jews
"The heroic actions of the Danish people during the autumn of 1943 saved nearly all of Denmark's Jews from certain death in Nazi concentration camps.
"After the Germans occupied the country in 1940, the Danish government resisted Nazi pressure to hand over its Jews. In 1943, however, the Danes intensified resistance, prompting a harsh Nazi reaction.
Imposing martial law, the Germans in October began to arrest and deport Danish Jews.
Reacting spontaneously, Danes alerted and hid the Jews, helping them to the coast and organizing secret passage across the sea to Sweden (pictured).
\ The unassuming Danish rescuers included police, fishermen, and members of church and social organizations.
"Over the course of three weeks, the Danish people transported more than 7,200 Jews and almost 700 of their non-Jewish relatives to safety aboard Danish fishing vessels.
The Nazis did capture 464 Jews, whom they sent to the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto.
Aid continued, nonetheless, as the Danish public sent food parcels to their Jewish countrymen imprisoned in Theresienstadt.
Just before the conclusion of the war, in spring 1945, negotiations rescued most of these Jews through an agreement that transferred many Scandinavian nationals from concentration camps to Sweden."
"Stanislaw Szmajzner, 16, participated in and helped to organize the revolt at the Sobibór death camp in October 1943.
After the uprising, Szmajzner was one of the prisoners who successfully escaped and joined forces with Russian partisans.
He was one of three members of his particular group to survive the war."
"Ernst von Weizsäcker was a career diplomat who loyally served the Nazi regime.
His career followed the path of his mentor, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Weizsäcker served as chief state secretary from the time that Ribbentrop was appointed foreign minister until 1943, when he was named as the ambassador to the Vatican."
- Zyklon B
"At six-week intervals in 1943, a truck dispatched from Auschwitz traveled to Dessau, Germany.
It returned with hermetically sealed tin canisters of Zyklon B, the commercial name for the bluish hydrogen cyanide pellets that asphyxiated more than a million Jews in the Auschwitz killing center.
"A powerful pesticide developed during World War I, Zyklon B was used to combat contagious disease by fumigating lice-infested buildings.
At first it served those purposes at Auschwitz, where overcrowding, malnutrition, and poor sanitation made dysentery, typhoid fever, and especially typhus constant threats.
By late summer 1941, however, the Nazis experimented with Zyklon B on Soviet POWs.
They found that the compound's vaporizing pellets offered a particularly reliable and efficient way to advance the 'Final Solution.'
"Two German companies--DEGESCH, a subsidiary of I.G. Farben, and Tesch and Stabenow Company--profited immensely by supplying Zyklon B to the SS.
They even modified it for Auschwitz by removing the special odor that ordinarily warned people about their product's deadly presence.
"In 1942 Auschwitz used 8.2 tons of Zyklon B.
The tonnage for 1943 was 13.4.
Most of it was poured through small rooftop openings into gas chambers packed with Jews.
Once exposed to air, the pellets produced lethal gas.
Minutes later, after panic-filled screams, the human victims were dead."
"In a family portrait reflecting happier times, Leone Biondi and Virginia Piperno are photographed with three of their six children. October 1943 marked a new stage in German control over Italian affairs following the German occupation of northern Italy.
Orders were issued to round up and deport the Jews of Rome, and on October 18 approximately 1000 were sent to Auschwitz.
Thanks to the intervention of their Italian friends and neighbors, many Jews were able to hide and to escape capture, some in Catholic churches and monasteries.
The Biondis were not so fortunate; the entire family perished at Auschwitz."