Rescue of Denmark's Jews
Danish resistance members help hide and evacuate approximately 8,000 Jews from occupied Denmark. Most find freedom in Sweden.
Liquidation of Vilna ghetto
Partisan commander Aba Kovner calls for mass Jewish resistance to liquidation orders. Underground fighters flee the Vilna ghetto to carry on the resistance while those remaining Jews are deported and murdered or forced into slave labor camps.
Jewish revolt at Treblinka
Jewish prisoners plot and launch an armed revolt at Treblinka. Hundreds escape the killing center and are pursued by SS, police and military units who recapture and excecute most of those who escape. Mass deportations to Treblinka cease shortly thereafter, in the fall of 1943.
Allied invasion of Sicily
Allied forces launch the invasion of Sicily from North Africa. Within weeks, Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini finds himself on the defensive and is removed from office via a no-confidence vote.
Capture of Vilna partisan commander
Nazi forces capture Yitzhak Wittenberg, commander of the Jewish partisans organization in Vilna. He is freed by his troops but later turns himself in after Nazi threats to liquidate the ghetto. After Wittenberg commits suicide, Aba Kovner assumes command and leads the armed struggle in the ghetto and in nearby forests.