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Dr. Chaim Weizmann, writing in "Foreign Affairs" magazine, calls for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.

February 27: The illegal immigrant ship "Struma" sinks in the Black Sea and 770 of the passengers are lost. The ship had sailed from Romania to Turkey, but when the British authorities refuse to allow the illegal immigrants to enter Palestine, the Turks send the ship out to sea where an explosion causes it to sink. This is the greatest disaster to befall the illegal immigrant campaign.

March: The Jewish Agency is informed by Lord Cranborne of the policy which he and Churchill seek to pursue. "All practical steps should be taken to discourage illegal immigration to Palestine."

May 9: The Biltmore Program is ratified by the American Zionist Committee in New York with the participation of Dr. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion who argues that the Jews can no longer be depended on Great Britain to facilitate a Jewish national home in Palestine. The program is drafted by Meyer-Weisgal, Weizmann's aide, but its essence is later alsways to be identified with Ben Gurion. The Program calls for the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth, for the gates of Palestine to be opened for Jewish immigration, and for authority regarding immigration and development to be vested in the Jewish Agency. During the following months the main points of the program are endorsed by the various Jewish parties and organizations in the Yishuv and in the world. On the 10th November 1942, the program will be adopted by the Inner Committee of the Zionist General Council at its headquarters in Jerusalem, where it will be given the name of the "Jerusalem Program".

June 21: "The Yishuv Mobilization Center" publishes a new order which obliges every male between the ages of 18 and 45 to report to his local recruiting office where his place in the defense campaign of the Yishuv will be decided: in the army, the Palmach, the Civil Guard or elsewhere. At the same time a mobilization fund is proclaimed. Before the end of the year a further mobilization order will be issued announcing compulsory national service, in agriculture or in industry, for all single women between the ages of 21 and 29.

The Jewish Agency, together with the Haganah and a branch of British intelligence is occupied in drawing up a plan of action in the event of the conquest of Palestine by the enemy, in order to forestall such an invasion. The plan envisions the concentration of the population in the Carmel range and its surroundings in northern Palestine, with the port of Haifa serving as a food and ammunition lifeline supported by the industrial infrastructure already in place.

November 30: The Jewish Agency Executive and the Va'ad Leumi set up the "Rescue Committee for the Jews of Occupied Europe" under the leadership of Yitzhak Gruenbaum, following the confirmation of the reports of the systematic campaign of extermination of the Jews in the territories occupied by the Nazis.
The Yishuv national bodies hold three Emergency Protest Days upon receiving verified reports of the slaughter of Jews in occupied Europe.

December 17: The Yishuv national bodies announce a 30-day period of mourning to commemorate the tragedy of the Jews in Europe.

Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive: David Ben Gurion.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Eliezer Kaplan.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department: Henrietta Szold.

Chairman of the Immigration Department: Eliahu Dobkin and Moshe Shapira.

January 3: Death of Pinhas Rutenberg.

January 15: Food rationing begins.

January 18: The recruitment of Jewish women in Palestine for the British Auxiliary Territorial Service begins.

February 12: Avraham Stern, the leader of Lehi, is killed in his hiding place in Tel Aviv by the British police.

April 26: The first Palmach sabotage and commando course is begun at Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek, conducted and financed by the British.

May: The Palmach forms a "German section" to operate behind enemy lines in the event of the conquest of Palestine.

August 6: The British announce the formation of Jewish battalions to consist of the Buff troops.

August 11: The "Ihud" (Unity) society is founded by Judah L. Magnes, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and other Jewish intellectuals. As successor to the Brit Shalom organization, its objective is Arab-Jewish cooperation in Palestine and the creation of a bi-national state.

October 30: At a congress held by the association of German and Austrian immigrants, it is decided to set up a political organization called "The New Aliyah" which ill take part in elections of the Yishuv and the Zionist movement. The "New Aliyah" will later be partner in the establishment of the Progressive Party.

Nazi Germany and World War II in 1942.

January: A conference of Nazi officials is held at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin.

A united fighting organization is established by Jews in the Vilna ghetto.

February: Michael Weizmann, son of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, is killed over the North Sea, flying for the British Royal Air Force.

March: The Germans begin killing Jews at the Belzec extermination camp. This marks the actual onset of Operation Reinhard.

Construction of an extermination camp at a wooded area near Sobibor begins.

The first deportation train from France leaves for Auschwitz.

The gassing of Jews begins at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) extermination camp.

April: The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee is established by the Soviet government to mobilize world Jewish support for the war effort against Nazi Germany.

May: A slave labor camp is established at Monowitz, where I. G. Farben has synthetic rubber and oil plants, and is called Auschwitz III.

The Sobibor extermination camp begins operation.

The Nazis open a death camp at Maly Trostenets, the site of a collective farm on the outskirts of Minsk.

On the site of an existing slave labor camp, construction of The Treblinka extermination camp begins.

The Polish Socialist Jewish Bund reports to the West a detailed account of deportations and killings of Jews throughout Poland and the gassings at Chelmno. It states that the Germans have already killed 700.000 Polish Jews. On June 2, the BBC broadcasts material from the Bund report. Polish authorities in London confirm the report.

June: From the middle of 1942 to 1945, the Nazis confiscate Jewish possessions of artistic and historical value throughout Bohemia and Moravia. They establish the Museum of an Extinct Race in Prague. Jewish art historians, who are later killed, catalog the collection.

July: At a Berlin meeting presided over by Heinrich Himmler, it is decided to conduct medical experiments on Jewish women at Auschwitz.

The first 2000 Jews are deported from Holland to Auschwitz.

The Germans begin deportation of the Jews of Warsaw. In two months, 254.000 will be sent by train from the Warsaw ghetto for extermination in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

Adam Czerniakow (1880-1942), head of the Warsaw Jewish Council, commits suicide rather than sign children's deportation orders. He keeps a secret diary that serves as a reliable document of the destruction of the Warsaw Jewry.

August: The first Jews from Belgium are deported to Auschwitz.

Gerhart Riegner, World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, advises U. S. Vice-Consul Howard Elting Jr., of the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe.

September: An instruction from the Swiss police explains that "refugees on the grounds of race alone are not political refugees", and Swiss frontier police refuse entry to more than 9.000 Jews from France.

November: The Nazis deport 513 Jews from Norway to Auschwitz.

The selection and gas chambers begin operation at Majdanek.

December: A day of mourning and prayer on behalf of the European Jewry is observed throughout the U. S. and in 29 foreign countries. In New York, 500.000 Jewish workers stop work for 10 minutes of protest. The following day the Jewish workers make up the 10 minutes of lost time.

Rabbi Michael Weissmandl, Slovakian Orthodox rabbi involved in rescue efforts, appeals to world Jewry for aid.

Together with Joel Brand and Samuel Springmann, Rudolf Kasztner helps create the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest.

During 1942, the Nazis murder 2.7 million Jews. It is the year of the greatest coordination of the "final solution".

Leon Blum, former French premier, is brought to trial by the Vichy government. In 1943, the trial will be suspended and he will be sent to Buchenwald by the Germans. Blum will be liberated in May 1945.

Ernst Lubitsch directs "To Be or Not to Be", a black comedy satirizing the Nazis and their ideology.

Irving Berlin, U. S. songwriter, writes "White Christmas", a popular song for the movie "Holiday Inn".

Frank Loesser (1910-1969), U. S. composer and writer, writes the words and music of his famous song "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition".

David Oistrakh (1908-1974), Soviet violinist, is awarded the Stalin Prize.