Death Camp Chelmno Research Paper

Chelmno was the first Nazi extermination camp where gassing was used to kill Jews on a large scale. The site was located in a large house, known as ‘The Palace’, which was located outside the small, isolated village of Chelmno, located in Poland. It was far enough from towns or cities to keep its business pretty secretive. In addition of the business being secret, a road and railway line permitted trucks and trains to bring victims right to the gate. The Palace was in operation only fifteen months, from December 1941 to March 1943.

In the beginning the concentration camps they were not even planned, to be mainly for Jews, in the beginning they had started with criminals and political prisoners. Later on Adolf Hitler wanted to have a “better” future, so who ever interfered in his plan was a threat so he had sent them to jail. People who

The concentration camp called Chelmno, also known as Kulmhof, is a well known death camp from World War 2. This camp was first used on December 8, 1941. The Chelmno camp was very popular for the Nazi’s at that time mainly because of its location. This camp was located in Central Poland approximately 31 miles from the city of Lodz- a very heavily populated town of Jews. Being surrounded by water made it very difficult for prisoners to successfully escape. In fact, it is only known that three jewish people escaped alive.

Chelmno was the first killing facility to begin operations, in December 1941. It was located in the Reich province Wartheland, which encompassed a part of Poland annexed to Germany. At Chelmno, a former aristocratic manor house served as the reception area. Members of a special detachment of SS and police subordinate to the Higher SS and Police Leader for Wartheland guarded the facility and killed people in trucks, in which the exhaust pipes had been reconfigured to pump carbon monoxide gas into sealed paneled spaces behind the cabs of the vehicles. The bodies were then driven into a nearby forest, where mass graves had been dug. “The

February 14, 1940, leaders of the Nazis called for reopening the killing center at Chelmno. The SS and police previously attending in the operation were assembled. The Germans then constructed two reception barracks and two open air ovens. On June 23, 1944, the killing process is resumed with the deportations of Jews from the Lodz ghetto. Innocent people were killed either by shooting or asphyxiation. On July 14, 1944, transportations of Jews to Chelmno are halted and changed to Auschwitz camp instead. In less than a month from June to July 1944, the SS and police killed more than 7,000 Jews at Chelmno. (1941 - 1945 Timeline)

Three extermination camps were formed: Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). They were all formed in the General Government and Heydrich plan was to make these camps strictly for murder. All three camps were located near railway lines to make the transportation of the victims easier. Belzec was the first Nazi camp to have stationary gas chambers built for murder, followed by the formation of Sobibor and Treblinka (The Wiener Library). All three extermination camps followed the same procedures. Jews were crowded onto freight cars with nearly 100 people in each car and escorted to the camps. They were then taking off the trains and brought to the reception area. Men were separated from women and children and told to undress and hand over all their valuables. After handing undressing and handing over their valuables, they were led directly into gas chambers misleadingly labeled as “showers” for disinfection. The Jews walked into these “showers” and the doors were closed behind them. Once the chamber doors were closed carbon monoxide was released into the “showers” killing everyone (The Wiener Library). The gas chambers were designed to look like shower so that the victims would not be frightened and try to resist. According to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, by the closing of Belzec nearly 600,000 Jews were killed at Belzec. An additional 213,000 Jews

Polish and western European Jews were deported to these ghettos. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) began killing entire Jewish communities. The methods used, mainly shooting or gas vans, were soon regarded as inefficient and as a psychological burden on the killers. After the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Nazis began the systematic deportation of Jews from all over Europe to six extermination camps established in former Polish territory -- Chelmno , Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek. Extermination camps were killing centers designed to carry out genocide.

Of all of the death camps built by the Nazis during World War II, none was larger or more destructive than the terrifying Auschwitz camp. Auschwitz was built by the Nazis in 1940, in Oswiecim, Poland, and was composed of three main parts. Auschwitz I was built in June 1940 and was intended to hold and kill Polish political prisoners. Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which opened October 1941, was larger and could contain over 100,000 inmates. Auschwitz III-Monowitz provided slave labor for a plant close by. In addition, there were many sub-camps. The most important camp at Auschwitz designed for the extermination of many people was Birkenau; numerous gas chambers and crematoria were established there, mainly to murder and incinerate Jews as

Each part had a specific task for its prisoners. Buna, the main work camp supplied hundreds of workers for construction jobs as well as factory labor. Buna was the third and final camp that was built. The prisoners worked in the Petro-Chemical Corporation I.G. Farben factory. There they made synthetic rubber and fuel. Before the factory was built, the Nazis had the prisoners clear the land and make it suitable for the factory’s construction. The land prior to the clearing was an open marsh which later lead to many diseases being spread by the prisoners throughout the camp. This lead to very high casualties, especially the cold winter months. The second part of the concentration camp that was built was Birkenau. The intention of the Birkenau concentration camp was to be a prison. In Birkenau, the Nazis held prisoners of war from when they invaded the Soviet Union. Within the prison, the people staying there as prisoners were punished in numerous ways. They were tortured for data on the war, they were selected, if fit, to take part in painful medical experiments by Doctor Josef Mengele. The most infamous part of the Auschwitz compound was the kill camp, Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a repurposed Austro-Hungarian artillery barrack. All the camps had casualties, but Auschwitz main goal was to exterminate its population. Anyone unfit to work was sent to Auschwitz to be killed. These were usually the elderly, young children, and women not fit for working. They were killed in gas chambers designed and built by the Nazis. The chambers would kill by releasing Zyklon B into the air, which then suffocated and killed people in an average time of fifteen minutes. Zyklon B is an insecticide which means it is used to kill insects, but it is so potent that when oxidized it can even kill humans. Then to dispose of the

This is the first death camp where gas was used for murder on a large scale. Everything was set up by Sonderkommando (“Cholmno Extermination”). The main reason for Chelmno was to eliminate most of the Jews from Wartheland (“Chelmno.”). The Jews were notified that they could be sent to Austria or somewhere else and that they would have good lives wherever they were sent. They were sent to take baths so that they were clean and all of the things they had were taken away. The Jews were told they had to get into a car to take them to the bath houses and once they were inside the car and it was started, poisonous gas was released to exterminate the Jews (“Chelmno.”). After the Jews were gassed, their bodies were put into a furnace and turned to ash. When someone had to take the ashes out of the furnace, but they could not keep doing it because of the smoke and the fumes, they were killed. Whatever was remained of the bodies was taken and put into a bag and hauled off to the river during the middle of the night (“The

Even with such massive extermination the German leaders were unsatisfied and demanded a more efficient and permanent answer to the problem. The directive to exterminate all the Jews in Europe was issued on July 31, 1941. In December of that year, a law banning Jews from leaving any German territories was put into effect. Then finally, on January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich came up with what was termed "the final solution to the of the Jewish question." He proposed a plan to erect six camps built for killing large numbers of people. The Germans built six such camps in the two years to follow, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, and Chelmno. Chelmno was the first of the camps to be built. It used large trucks into which they crammed as many Jews as possible who choked on the trucks own exhaust fumes. Most of the other camps had permanent gas chambers, which killed by the fumes of a stationary engine. Although Auschwitz used Zyklon B, a type of hydrogen cyanide. These venues of death were host to over 3 million Jews who lost their lives. (Wyman)

One year after the camp had begun it soon built a reputation for torture and death (Auschwitz-Birkenau- “The). Auschwitz was made for three main reasons: confine both real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime, provide people for labor in construction-related enterprises, and serve a place to kill people whose life was determined by the Schutzstaffel, also known as the SS (Holocaust). A man named Adolf Hitler was determined to kill everyone who he believed were not fit for survival in Nazi Germany. In order to meet his beliefs, he turned the concentration camps into places solely for killing Jews as a “final solution”; he called the camps death camps

To start off with, many Jews were killed at Treblinka Extermination camp. Apart from Auschwitz, Treblinka murdered the highest amount of jews out of all of the camps (Treblinka extermination camp). An estimate says between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed there (Treblinka extermination camp). Train cars were brought to Treblinka around twenty cars at a time (Treblinka). From there, the Jews were taken out and to the gas chambers. This camp was responsible for many

During the Holocaust, many death camps were built. There were over 40,000 camps, which were located all over Europe. These death camps killed over six millions Jews, and were deliberately built for the purpose to kill them. The S.S. soldiers killed them by forced labor, gas chambers, and mass murder. Belzec, a death camp, which is found in Southern Poland, contributed to the Holocaust. Belzec contributed to the Holocaust by making men do physical labor, using the first stationary gas chambers, and killing between 430,000 to 500,000 Jews.

Nazis put people in concentrations camps because Hitler hated certain types of people. A concentration camp is a small place where a large number of people are held where they have to work and they are murdered. This led to a big conflict and a mass murder. They lived in bad conditions like wooden stable barracks that were very uncomfortable and very crowded small areas. The Jews had very bad sleeping conditions too. At the concentration camps there were many sicknesses that killed people. They were starved and weak because they did not have enough to eat. Jewish people were killed in many different disgusting ways, if they didn’t die from sickness.