Allied troops moving towards Germany are halted when Nazi forces in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium push back the US Army. The Germans' rapid advance creates a "bulge" in the front lines of combat, but their gains are only temporary.
Between December 1944 and January 1945, approximately 20,000 Jews from Budapest's ghetto are taken to the banks of the Danube, where they are murdered and their bodies thrown into the river.
Nazi forces liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport between 60,000-75,000 Jews, as well as an unknown number of Roma, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Advancing Soviet troops reach the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp. They find gas chambers and other evidence of genocide. Approximately 2,500 survivors provide details of the camp to their liberators, who document the horrors. Majdanek is the first concentration camp to be liberated by the Allies.
After reclaiming Minsk on July 4, the Red Army presses westward, reaching Novogrudek on July 8 and driving the Nazi occupiers from the city.
