The Holocaust Timeline below can be split up into two general sections. The years 1933-1939 were “years of persecution.” The Jews of Germany were dishonored, degraded, and gradually expelled from German society. They became objects of ridicule and hatred; their assets were confiscated, and their basic rights revoked. Anti-Semitic laws spread to other European countries, as well. In the years 1939-1945 the anti-Jewish action switched to a new gear. These were “years of extermination.” Hitler prophesied doom for the Jews of Europe, and he was not slow to act towards the fulfillment of his own prediction. He instituted atrociously diabolical means, each one more ghastly than the other, to slaughter six million Jews of Europe, including 1.5 million children.