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April: The Jewish Agency makes effort to isolate Etzel and Lehi, threatening to take action against them if they do not halt their anti-British attacks.
More Jewish parachutists are sent on missions to Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary.
The Yishuv national bodies issue a decree for compulsory service after high school graduation.

May: Joel Brand (1906-1964), a Hungarian Jew, is flown by the Nazis to Istanbul, to advise the Jewish Agency of an offer from Adolf Eichmann to release one million Jews in return for 10.000 trucks to be used only for the eastern front. Brand is arrested by the British and held in Cairo, where it is believed that he meets Lord Moyne, the British minister of state in the Middle East. The deal never goes through.

May 25: The Jewish Agency debates the rescue of Hungarian Jews.

After the report on Auschwitz the two most senior members of the Jewish Agency, Dr. Weizmann and foreign minister Moshe Shertok, apprised of this information, go personally to London. On 6 July 1944, in a meeting with Anthony Eden, Weizmann and Shertok make five urgent and desperate suggestions. The first is that the allies should publish a declaration expressing their readiness to admit Jewish refugees (or as they called them, "fugitives") from any territory into the neutral countries (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Turkey) adjacent to Nazi-controlled Europe, persuading these countries to give what was called "temporary shelter" to those escaping the massacres. Eden and the British government responded immediately and with alacrity to this request.
The second suggestion is that those governments with diplomatic representation in Hungary should be asked to request their representatives in Budapest to issue protective documents for the Jews of Hungary. Some days after, Raoul Wallenberg begins issuing protective documents in Budapest.
The third request is that a "stern warning" be issued, published and broadcast to Hungarian officials, railwaymen and the Hungarian population in general: that anyone convicted of having taken part in the rounding up of Jews or their deportation would be considered a war criminal and treated accordingly.
The fourth is that Stalin, whose forces were in the Carpathians, should be asked to issue a similar warning on Hungary on behalf of the Soviet Union.
The fifth and final request of the Jewish Agency is, "that the railway line leading from Budapest to Birkenau, and the death camp at Birkenau and other places, should be bombed."

July: 222 Dutch Jews imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen and 52 Jews from France arrive in Palestine. German and British officials, the Jewish Agency, and the International Red Cross secretly arrange the exchange for a group of German women and children who had been interned by the British in Palestine as enemy aliens.

August 8: The Jewish Agency condemns the attempt on High Commissioner Sir Harold MacMichael's life by Lehi members.

September 20: The War Ministry in London announces the establishment of the Jewish Brigade, to serve within the framework of the British army. It is made up of three of the battalions with the addition of some other units and complemented by the newly mobilized men; the Brigade totals 5,000 soldiers. The Brigade's flag is the Jewish flag and the tags the soldiers wear on their sleeves show a Shield of David against a background of the colors of the Jewish flag. This crowns the effort of a prolonged struggle led by the head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, Moshe Shertok.

October: The Jewish Agency demand of Etzel and Lehi to cease their anti-British activity until the end of the war.

November 6: The Jewish Agency denounces the "loathsome crime" of the assassination of Lord Moyne in Cairo and call for the eradication of the "growing danger posed by the terrorist gang that still exists in Eretz Israel."

The immigration figure of 1944 totals 15,000. Six new settlements are established.

Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive: David Ben Gurion.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Eliezer Kaplan.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department: Henrietta Szold.

Chairman Settlement Department: Eliezer Kaplan.

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

January 5: The Mapai Council is divided on the issue of the Biltmore Program.

January 12: The Yishuv population is called upon to increase contributions for the recruitment and rescue efforts of European Jewry.

January 14: The United Kibbutz Council is shocked by testimonies from three concentration camp survivors.

February 1: After Menachem Begin takes over the leadership of Etzel, the leaders declare a rebellion against British rule. The main targets of Etzel's attacks during the year are: the immigration offices in three large cities (12.2.), the income tax offices in these three cities (27.2.), the C.I.D. headquarters in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa (23.3. and 23.8.), the broadcasting station at Ramallah (17.5.) and the police forts at Bet Dagon, Kalkily, Haifa and Katra (27.9.). During this period Lehi, too, continues to fight the authorities in its own fashion.

May: Five years after the promulgation of the White Paper, vigorous implementation of its immigration clause by the British authorities results in the non-utilization of 20.000 of the 75.000 certificates available for immigration.

May 20: Mapai splits. A new party, Hetenuah Leahdut Haavoda (United Labor Movement) is established.

May 24: Koor, the industrial arm of Solel Boneh construction company is founded.

June 5: Emergency Protest Day to Save the Remnant is held throughout the country to support European Jewry.

July 19: Lord Gort is appointed high commissioner.

August 8: Outgoing High Commissioner Sir Harold MacMichael is slightly wounded in an attempt on his life by Lehi members.

August 13: Death of Berl Katznelson.

October 7: The Arab League is established.

October 8: The head of the Haganah National Command, Moshe Sneh, demands that Etzel commander Menachem Begin halt his anti-British activities until the end of the war. Begin refuses.

October 19: The British exile 251 Etzel and Lehi prisoners to Eritrea.

October 24: The Cameri Theater is established.

October 31: Lord Gort, the new high commissioner assumes office.

November 6: Two Lehi members assassinate Lord Moyne, the British minister of state in the Middle East, in Cairo.
The "Season" is opened.

November 7: Hannah Szenes, Jewish parachutist, is executed by the Nazis in prison in Hungary.

Nazi Germany and World War II in 1944.

January: Aides to U. S. secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., submit a report to him: "Report to the Secretary on the Aquiesence of This Government in the Murder of Jews."

Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and his aides meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the plight of Jews and suggest an executive order establishing a War Refugee Board.

Between March and August, Ira Hirschmann (1901-1989), War Refugee Board representative in Turkey, arranges the safeguarding of the remaining Romanian and Bulgarian Jews.

March: Emanuel Ringelblum, historian of the Warsaw ghetto, and his family are among a group of 38 hiding in "Aryan" Warsaw. They are betrayed to the Nazis. Several days later Ringelblum is executed.

Adolf Eichmann and his assistants meet at Mauthausen concentration camp and plan the deportation program for 750.000 Hungarian Jews.

April: Klaus Barbie, a middle-ranking Gestapo officer deports 44 Jewish children and 7 adults from the village of Izieu near Lyon to Auschwitz. Barbie is known as the "Butcher of Lyon".

After Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from Auschwitz, Vrba pleads with Hungarian Jewish leaders to resist deportations. His pleads go unheeded.

The first deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz take place.

May: Mass deportations of Hungarian Jews commence. At the end of the month, 204.312 Jews will be deported to Auschwitz.

The Nazis expand the industrial plants in the Auschwitz region in expectation of the arrival of several hundred thousand Hungarian Jews.

Rabbi Michael Weissmandl, who is involved in rescue efforts in Bratislava, sends coded messages to the Swiss Orthodox Jewish community. He urges Allied aerial bombardment of the railway lines to Auschwitz to interrupt the deportation of the Hungarian Jews.

June: Eichmann offers Rudolf Kasztner and the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest the opportunity to save a million Hungarian Jews in exchange for 10.000 trucks. A train with 1.686 Hungarian Jews is allowed to leave for Bergen-Belsen and then to Switzerland.

July: Prime Minister Winston Churchill tells Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to have Britain's air force bomb Auschwitz. Churchill's request is subverted.

Between July 7 and November 20, the Allied forces bomb an oil refining complex near Auschwitz ten times. On August 20, the U.S. Air Force bombs the Auschwitz factory area.

Admiral Horthy, Hungarian head of state, stops the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz after worldwide protests.

Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman turned diplomat, begins operating from the Swedish embassy in Budapest. He uses bribery, bluff and deception to save thousands of Jews. Wallenberg is financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and supported by his own government.

Erich Salomon (1886-1944), pioneer German photojournalist is murdered in Auschwitz.

August: The family of Anne Frank is discovered during a search for hidden Jews in Amsterdam.

67.000 Jews of the Lodz ghetto are deported to Auschwitz shortly before the Soviet army liberates the city.

September: Paul Eppstein is murdered by the Gestapo.

October: One thousand Jews fight with the Polish underground army during the uprising against the Germans in Warsaw.

Jewish inmates who are forced to assist in the extermination process blow up one of the four crematoria in Auschwitz.

The Arrow Cross Hungarian Fascist organization seizes power and sets up a pro-Nazi government. Adolf Eichmann returns to Budapest. Deportations of Jews and death marches to Germany are resumed.

The Nazis evacuate the Plaszow camp near Cracow, including Oscar Schindler's factory where 1.200 Jews work under his protection.

At Auschwitz, the Nazis burn evidence of their mass killings. Thousands of Jews are marched away from Auschwitz to other camps.

Hungary exempts Jews with foreign passports from deportation. Swiss Consul Charles Lutz begins issuing protective documents. Within a few weeks, he has 76 buildings in Budapest under Swiss diplomat protection. 25.000 Jews are saved.

The gas chambers in Auschwitz stop operating.

November: The destruction of crematoria and gas chambers in Auschwitz begin, ordered by Heinrich Himmler. On 26 November, the last members of the Sonderkommando are murdered.

December: During 1944, the Nazis murdered 600.000 Jews, most of them Hungarian.

Mendel Grossmann (1912-1944), photographer in the Lodz ghetto is murdered.

John von Neumann (1903-1957) and Oskar Morgenstern (1902-1977) write "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior", which originates the mathematical theory of games.

Isaac Stern (1920-2001), violinist, makes his debut as soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Jacobowsky and the Colonel", a play written by S. N. Behrman (1893-1973), U. S. playwright, with Franz Werfel ("Jacobowsky und der Oberst") (1890-1945) is produced on Broadway.

Joseph Erlanger (1874-1965) is awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology, Isidor Isaac Rabi in physics and Herbert Spencer Gasser in medicine.