Extermination camp#Gassing

{{see also|Nisko Plan}}

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|caption=Two of the four crematoria at Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

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|legendbox=no |legend1start=1 |overlay1=Crematorium II |overlay1top=170 |overlay1left=250 |overlay2=Crematorium III |overlay2top=220 |overlay2left=250 }}

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After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the secret Aktion T4 euthanasia programme{{snd}}the systematic murder of German, Austrian and Polish hospital patients with mental or physical disabilities authorized by Hitler{{snd}}was initiated by the SS in order to eliminate "life unworthy of life" ({{langx|de|Lebensunwertes Leben}}), a Nazi designation for people who they considered to have no right to life.{{cite book |author=Michael Burleigh |year=1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ShU7AAAAIAAJ |title=Death and Deliverance: 'Euthanasia' in Germany, c. 1900 to 1945 |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=0-521-47769-7}}{{cite web|url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/otwock.html |title=Otwock & the Zofiowka Sanatorium: A Refuge from Hell |last=Webb |first=Chris |year=2009 |url-status=live |publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711142224/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/otwock.html |archive-date=11 July 2011 }} In 1941, the experience gained in the secretive killing of these hospital patients led to the creation of extermination camps for the implementation of the Final Solution. By then, the Jews were already confined to new ghettos and interned in Nazi concentration camps along with other targeted groups, including Roma, and the Soviet POWs. The Nazi's so-called "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", based on the systematic murder of Europe's Jews by gassing, began during Operation Reinhard,{{cite web |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205724.pdf |title=Aktion Reinhard |publisher=Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies |year=2013 |access-date=15 September 2015 |author=Yad Vashem |id=Document size 33.1 KB |archive-date=15 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215130625/http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205724.pdf |url-status=dead }} after the June 1941 onset of the Nazi–Soviet war. The adoption of the gassing technology by Nazi Germany was preceded by a wave of hands-on killings carried out by the SS {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppen}},{{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |author-link= Peter Longerich |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |year=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford; New York |isbn=978-0-19-280436-5 |page=185}} who followed the {{lang|de|Wehrmacht}} army during Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front.{{cite book |url=http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/28107437-Nazi-Germany-and-the-Jews-1933-1945-Abridged-Edition-2009-Malestrom.pdf |title=Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933–1945 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |date=February 2009 |first=Saul |last=Friedländer |pages=293–294 / 507 |isbn=978-0-06-177730-1 |edition=Abridged |author-link=Saul Friedländer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180918142723/http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/28107437-Nazi-Germany-and-the-Jews-1933-1945-Abridged-Edition-2009-Malestrom.pdf |archive-date=18 September 2018 |url-status=dead }}{{efn|The development of homicidal gas chambers is attributed by historians to Albert Widmann, chief chemist of the German Criminal Police (Kripo).{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jHQdRHNdK44C |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |date=2007 | access-date=16 September 2015 |first=Christopher R |last=Browning |pages=188–189 |isbn=978-0-8032-0392-1 |author-link=Christopher R. Browning }} The first gas van manufactured in Berlin, was used by the Lange Commando between 21 May and 8 June 1940 at the Soldau concentration camp in occupied Poland, to kill 1,558 mental patients delivered from sanatoria.{{cite web |first=Aaron |last=Breitbart |publisher=The Simon Wiesenthal Center |location=Los Angeles |year=1997 |url=http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394667 |title=Responses to Revisionist Arguments |access-date=14 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403232419/http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394667 |archive-date=3 April 2017 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/vans.html |title=The Development of the Gas-Van in the Murdering of the Jews |year=2006 |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |access-date=20 April 2020}} Lange used his experience with exhaust gasses in setting up the Chełmno extermination camp thereafter.{{cite book |title=Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4YJnsqPiP7QC&q=Soldau |publisher=W W Norton & Company |first=Christopher R |last=Browning |pages=53–54 |isbn=978-0393338874 }} Widmann conducted first gassing experiments in the East in September 1941 in Mogilev, and successfully initiated the killing of local hospital patients with the exhaust fumes from a truck engine, minimizing the psychological impact of the crime on the {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}}.{{sfn|Rees|2006|pages=53, 148}} }}

The camps designed specifically for the mass gassings of Jews were established in the months following the Wannsee Conference chaired by Reinhard Heydrich in January 1942 in which the principle was made clear that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated. Responsibility for the logistics was to be handled by the programme administrator, Adolf Eichmann.{{cite web |url=https://prorevnews.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/minutes-of-the-wannsee-conference/ |title=Wannsee Protocol of January 20, 1942 |work=The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol. 11 |publisher=The official U.S. government translation |year=1945 |access-date=15 September 2015 |editor-first=John |editor-last=Mendelsohn }}

On 13 October 1941, the SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik stationed in Lublin received an oral order from {{lang|de|Reichsführer-SS}} Heinrich Himmler{{snd}}anticipating the fall of Moscow{{snd}}to start immediate construction work on the killing centre at Bełżec in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. Notably, the order preceded the Wannsee Conference by three months,{{citation |trans-title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum – Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu (National Bełżec Museum & Monument of Martyrdom) |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=15 September 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015 }} but the gassings at Chełmno north of Łódź using gas vans began already in December, under {{lang|de|Sturmbannführer}} Herbert Lange.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4YJnsqPiP7QC&q=Chelmno+death+camp | title=Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp | publisher=W. W. Norton & Company | date=2011b | access-date=28 June 2015 | author=Christopher R. Browning | pages=54, 65 | isbn=978-0-393-33887-4| author-link=Christopher R. Browning }} The camp at Bełżec was operational by March 1942, with leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of {{lang|de|italic=no|Organisation Todt}} (OT). By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands for Operation Reinhard: Sobibór (ready in May 1942) under the command of {{lang|de|Hauptsturmführer}} Franz Stangl, and Treblinka (operational by July 1942) under {{lang|de|Obersturmführer}} Irmfried Eberl from T4, the only doctor to have served in such a capacity.{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=15 September 2015 |author=Kenneth McVay }} Also in: {{cite journal |url=http://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/41/20631.pdf |title=Dr Irmfried Eberl (1910–1948): mass murdering MD |publisher=IMAJ |volume=11 |pages=216–218 |date=April 2009 |first=Rael D |last=Strous MD |journal=The Israel Medical Association Journal |issue=4 |pmid=19603594 |access-date=6 October 2015}} Auschwitz concentration camp was fitted with brand new gas chambers in March 1942.{{sfn|Rees|2006|pages=96–97}} Majdanek had them built in September.{{cite book |last=Sereny |first=Gitta |author-link=Gitta Sereny |title=The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections on Germany 1938–1941 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/healingwoundexpe00sere/page/135 135–146] |publisher=Norton |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-393-04428-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/healingwoundexpe00sere/page/135 }}

File:Auschwitz Resistance 280 cropped.jpg}} burned the bodies of victims in the fire pits at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, when the crematoria were overloaded. (August 1944){{cite web |url=http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/ |title=Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Oświęcim, Poland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210022111/http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/ |archive-date=10 December 2008 }}]]

The Nazis distinguished between extermination and concentration camps. The terms extermination camp ({{lang|de|Vernichtungslager}}) and death camp ({{lang|de|Todeslager}}) were interchangeable in the Nazi system, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide. Six camps meet this definition, though extermination of people happened at every sort of concentration camp or transit camp; the use of the term extermination camp with its exclusive purpose is carried over from Nazi terminology. The six camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau).{{cite web |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution/death-camps.html#narrative_info |title=The Death Camps |work=Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center |access-date=19 April 2020 }}{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/killing-centers-an-overview |title=Killing Centers: An Overview |encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=19 April 2020 }}

Death camps were designed specifically for the systematic killing of people delivered en masse by the Holocaust trains. Deportees were normally murdered within a few hours of arrival at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.{{cite book |title=A New Illustrated History of the Nazis |last=Minerbi |first=Alessandra |year=2005 |orig-year=2002 |publisher=David & Charles |location=UK |pages=168 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TFbfiRCVLTUC&pg=PA168 |isbn=0-7153-2101-3 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} The Reinhard extermination camps were under Globocnik's direct command; each of them was run by 20 to 35 men from the {{lang|de|SS-Totenkopfverbände}} branch of the {{lang|de|Schutzstaffel}}, augmented by about one hundred Trawnikis{{snd}}auxiliaries mostly from Soviet Ukraine, and up to one thousand {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} slave labourers each.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7KbsHLnbwgC&pg=PA331 |title=Police Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard |last=Black |first=Peter R |editor-last=Bankir |editor-first=David |publisher=Enigma Books |year=2006 |pages=331–348 |isbn=1-929631-60-X |via=Google Books}} The Jewish men, women and children were delivered from the ghettos for "special treatment" in an atmosphere of terror by uniformed police battalions from both Orpo and Schupo.{{cite book |title=The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror |first=Gordon |last=Williamson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7gv7yPIdQdsC&pg=PA101 |page=101 |publisher=Zenith Imprint |year=2004 |isbn=0-7603-1933-2 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Death camps differed from concentration camps located in Germany proper, such as Bergen-Belsen, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen, which were prison camps set up prior to World War II for people defined as 'undesirable'. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by the {{lang|de|SS-Totenkopfverbände}} (the Skull Units, SS-TV), who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-KEtPlNQJNgC&pg=PA9 |title=The Waffen SS |first=George H. |last=Stein |access-date=7 October 2015 |pages=9, 20–33 |isbn=0-8014-9275-0|year=1984 |publisher=Cornell University Press }} An SS anatomist, Johann Kremer, after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau, wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942: "Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing!"{{cite web|url=http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/19420901-kremer/ |title=Diary of Johann Paul Kremer (September 5, 1942) |publisher=Holocaust-history.org |date=2 March 1999 |access-date=27 August 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514183659/http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/19420901-kremer/ |archive-date=14 May 2008 }} The distinction was evident during the Nuremberg trials, when Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the {{lang|de|extermination}} camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked, "How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?", he replied, "They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann."{{cite book |last=Overy |first=Richard |title=Interrogations |pages=356–357 |publisher=Penguin |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-14-028454-6}}

Murders were not limited to these camps. Sites for the "Holocaust by Bullets" are marked on the map of The Holocaust in Occupied Poland by white skulls (without the black background), where people were lined up next to a ravine and shot by soldiers with rifles. Sites included Bronna Góra, Ponary, Rumbula and others.

File:WW2-Holocaust-Europe.png

Irrespective of round-ups for extermination camps, the Nazis abducted millions of foreigners for slave labour in other types of camps,{{cite book |url=http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20One.pdf |title=Forced Labour under Third Reich – Part 1 |publisher=Nathan Associates |chapter=Introduction |year=2006 |access-date=7 October 2015 |first1=John C |last1=Beyer |first2=Stephen A |last2=Schneider |pages=3–17 | quote=Number of foreign laborers employed as of January 1944 (excluding those already dead): total of 3,795,000. From Poland: 1,400,000 (survival rate 25.2); from the Soviet Union: 2,165,000 (survival rate 27.7) ^{Table 5.} |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150824092603/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |archive-date=24 August 2015 |df= dmy-all }} which provided perfect cover for the extermination programme.{{cite web| url=http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/slave_labour13.htm| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110604024311/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/slave_labour13.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=4 June 2011 | work=Hitler's Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany under the Third Reich |publisher=Cambridge University Press |title=The Army of Millions of the Modern Slave State (extract) |year=1997 |first=Ulrich |last=Herbert |via= University of the West of England, Faculty of Humanities |others=Compiled by S. D. Stein}} Prisoners represented about a quarter of the total workforce of the Reich, with mortality rates exceeding 75 percent due to starvation, disease, exhaustion, executions, and physical brutality.

{{main|The Final Solution|Nazi ghettos|Holocaust train}}

In the early years of World War II, the Jews were primarily sent to forced labour camps and ghettoised, but from 1942 onward they were deported to the extermination camps under the guise of "resettlement". For political and logistical reasons, the most infamous Nazi German killing factories were built in occupied Poland, where most of the intended victims lived; Poland had the greatest Jewish population in Nazi-controlled Europe.[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/evacpol.html "The evacuation of Jews to Poland"]. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 28 July 2009. On top of that, the new death camps outside of Germany's prewar borders could be kept secret from the German civil populace.{{cite book|author-link = Ellen Land-Weber|first = Ellen|last = Land-Weber|chapter-url = http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html|chapter = Conditions for Polish Jews During WWII|title = To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue|date = 26 October 2004|access-date = 9 March 2009|archive-date = 2 July 2010|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100702090015/http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html|url-status = dead}}

File:Children headed for deportation.JPG]]

During the initial phase of the Final Solution, gas vans producing poisonous exhaust fumes were developed in the occupied Soviet Union (USSR) and at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, before being used elsewhere. The killing method was based on experience gained by the SS during the secretive {{lang|de|Aktion T4}} programme of involuntary euthanasia. There were two types of death chambers operating during the Holocaust.

Unlike at Auschwitz, where cyanide-based Zyklon B was used to exterminate trainloads of prisoners under the guise of "relocation", the camps at Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór, built during Operation Reinhard (October 1941{{snd}}November 1943), used lethal exhaust fumes produced by large internal combustion engines. The three killing centres of {{lang|de|Einsatz Reinhard}} were constructed predominantly for the extermination of Poland's Jews trapped in the Nazi ghettos.{{cite web|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos|title=Ghettos|website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org}} At first, the victims' bodies were buried with the use of crawler excavators, but they were later exhumed and incinerated in open-air pyres to hide the evidence of genocide in what became known as {{lang|de|italic=no|Sonderaktion 1005}}.{{cite book |last1=Desbois |first1=Patrick |title=The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0-2305-9456-2 |page=170 |language=en |chapter=Operation 1005}}{{sfn|Arad|1999|pages=152–153}}

The six camps considered to be purely for extermination were Chełmno extermination camp, Bełżec extermination camp, Sobibor extermination camp, Treblinka extermination camp, Majdanek extermination camp and Auschwitz extermination camp (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau).

Whereas the Auschwitz II (Auschwitz–Birkenau) and Majdanek camps were parts of a labor camp complex, the Chełmno and Operation Reinhard death camps (that is, Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka) were built exclusively for the rapid extermination of entire communities of people (primarily Jews) within hours of their arrival. All were constructed near branch lines that linked to the Polish railway system, with staff members transferring between locations. These camps had almost identical design: they were several hundred metres in length and width, and were equipped with only minimal staff housing and support installations not meant for the victims crammed into the railway transports.{{sfn|Arad|1999|p=37}}{{cite web |url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/aktion-reinhard/prolog-arad.html |title=Aktion Reinhard: Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka|access-date=3 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513174430/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/aktion-reinhard/prolog-arad.html|archive-date=13 May 2008|url-status=dead}}

The Nazis deceived the victims upon their arrival, telling them that they were at a temporary transit stop, and would soon continue to German {{lang|de|Arbeitslager}} (work camps) farther to the east.{{cite web|url=http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-camps/daily-life/journeys#.V6SvaDW19kQ |title=Deportation and transportation |publisher=London Jewish Cultural Centre |work=The Holocaust Explained |year=2011 |access-date=5 August 2016 |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150113195832/http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-camps/daily-life/journeys#.V6SvaDW19kQ |archive-date=13 January 2015 }} Selected able-bodied prisoners delivered to the death camps were not immediately killed, but instead were pressed into labor units called {{lang|de|Sonderkommandos}} to help with the extermination process by removing corpses from the gas chambers and burning them.

File:Auschwitz Resistance 282 cropped.JPG taken secretly at Auschwitz II in August 1944|right]]

At the camps of Operation Reinhard, including Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, trainloads of prisoners were murdered immediately after arrival in gas chambers designed exclusively for that purpose. The mass killing facilities were developed at about the same time inside the Auschwitz II-Birkenau subcamp of a forced labour complex,{{Cite book |last=Grossman |first=Vasily |author-link=Vasily Grossman |year=1946 |title=The Treblinka Hell |trans-title=Треблинский ад |url=http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |at=[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47875651/TheHellOfTreblinka.html (online version)] |location=Moscow |access-date=5 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006123821/http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |archive-date=6 October 2014 |url-status=dead }} Originally published as [http://lib.ru/PROZA/GROSSMAN/trebl.txt Повести, рассказы, очерки] [Stories, Journalism, and Essays], Moscow: Voenizdat, 1958. and at the Majdanek concentration camp. In most other camps prisoners were selected for slave labor first; they were kept alive on starvation rations and made available to work as required. Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Jasenovac were retrofitted with Zyklon B gas chambers and crematoria buildings as the time went on, remaining operational until war's end in 1945.M. Lifshitz, Zionism [משה ליפשיץ, "ציונות"], p. 304. Compare with H. Abraham, "History of Israel and the nations in the era of Holocaust and uprising" [חדד אברהם, "תולדות ישראל והעמים בתקופת השואה והתקומה"]

File:May 1944 - Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau.jpg)]]

Heinrich Himmler visited the outskirts of Minsk in 1941 to witness a mass shooting. He was told by the commanding officer there that the shootings were proving psychologically damaging to those being asked to pull the triggers. Thus, Himmler concluded that another method of mass killing was required.{{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Longerich |date=2010 |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=278-279 |isbn=9780192804365}}{{cite book |last=Angrick |first=Andrej |date=2003 |title=Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord. Die Einsatzgruppe D in der südlichen Sowjetunion 1941-1943 |location=Hamburg |publisher=Hamburger Edition |pages=361-385 |isbn=3930908913}} Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss claimed in his memoir that many {{lang|de|Einsatzkommandos}} were "unable to endure wading through blood any longer" and went mad or killed themselves, but he gives no specific numbers to support this claim.{{cite book|first=Rudolf|last=Hess|author-link=Rudolf Hess|date=2005|chapter=I, the Commandant of Auschwitz|editor-first=Jon E.|editor-last=Lewis|title=True War Stories|page=[https://archive.org/details/mammothbookoftru00jone/page/321 321]|publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-7867-1533-6|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothbookoftru00jone/page/321}}

The Nazis had first used gassing with carbon monoxide cylinders to murder 70,000 disabled people in Germany in what they called a 'euthanasia programme' to disguise that mass murder was taking place. Despite the lethal effects of carbon monoxide, this was seen as unsuitable for use in the East due to the cost of transporting the carbon monoxide in cylinders."Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution", Yesterday television channel, 18:00, 18 November 2013{{better source needed|reason=Surely there's something more easily verifiable, e.g. a book|date=May 2022}}

Each extermination camp operated differently, yet each had designs for quick and efficient industrialized killing. While Höss was away on an official journey in late August 1941 his deputy, Karl Fritzsch, tested out an idea. At Auschwitz clothes infested with lice were treated with crystallised prussic acid. The crystals were made to order by the IG Farben chemicals company for which the brand name was Zyklon B. Once released from their container, Zyklon B crystals in the air released a lethal cyanide gas. Fritzsch tried out the effect of Zyklon B on Soviet POWs, who were locked up in cells in the basement of the bunker for this experiment. Höss on his return was briefed and impressed with the results and this became the camp strategy for extermination as it was also to be at Majdanek. Besides gassing, the camp guards continued killing prisoners via mass shooting, starvation, torture, etc.{{cite book|first=Joseph|last=Borkin|title=The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben|url=https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmento0000bork|url-access=registration|location=New York City|publisher=Free Press|year=1978|isbn=978-0-02-904630-2}}

{{See also|The Holocaust#Gas chambers|Gas chamber#Nazi Germany|Criticism of Holocaust denial#Use of gas chambers}}

SS {{lang|de|Obersturmführer}} Kurt Gerstein of the Institute for Hygiene of the {{lang|de|Waffen-SS}}, told a Swedish diplomat during the war, about life in a death camp. He recounted that on 19 August 1942, he arrived at Bełżec extermination camp (which was equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers) and was shown the unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead. The rest were marched naked to the gas chambers, where:

{{Blockquote|{{lang|de|Unterscharführer}} Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel [engine] did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, "like in the synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian (Trawniki) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes – the stopwatch recorded it all – the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons, in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See, for yourself, the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day – dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!"|Kurt Gerstein{{cite book |first1=Roderick |last1=Stackelberg |first2=Sally Anne |last2=Winkle |title=The Nazi Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts |publisher=Routledge|year=2002 |page=354|isbn=978-0-415-22213-6}}}}

File:Birkenau a group of Jews walking towards the gas chambers and crematoria.jpg)]]

Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss reported that the first time Zyklon B pellets were used on the Jews, many suspected they were to be killed{{snd}}despite having been deceived into believing they were to be deloused and then returned to the camp.{{Cite web |url=https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007714 |title=At the Killing Centers |work=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |language=en |access-date=2 March 2018}} As a result, the Nazis identified and isolated "difficult individuals" who might alert the prisoners, and removed them from the mass{{snd}}lest they incite revolt among the deceived majority of prisoners en route to the gas chambers. The "difficult" prisoners were led to a site out of view to be killed off discreetly.

According to Höss, enslaved prisoners, euphemistically called {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} (Special Detachment), assisted in the process of extermination; they encouraged the Jews to undress and accompanied them into the gas chambers which were outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles, and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before the chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the door until the end. The {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing.{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=164–165, 321–322 }} Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that the delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} comforted older children who might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion".{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=164–165, 322–323 }}

Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such tactics; Commandant Höss spoke of Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless ... [they] found the courage to joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream like maniacs"; these prisoners were taken away for execution by shooting.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=323 }} In such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed the identities and "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=324 }}

Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses. Commandant Höss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion"; the Auschwitz camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon B gas, which killed before the victim began suffering convulsions.{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=320, 328 }} The corpses were additionally found half-squatting, their skin discolored pink with red and green spots, with some foaming at the mouth or bleeding from their ears, exacerbated by the crowding in gas chambers.{{sfn|Piper|1994|p=170}}

{{multiple image |align=right |direction=vertical

|image1 = Remains of Crematorium II Birkenau.jpg

| width1 = 210

| caption1 = The remnants of "Crematorium II" used in Auschwitz-Birkenau between March 1943 and its destruction by the Schutzstaffel on 20 January 1945

| image2 = Crematorium at Auschwitz I 2012.jpg

| width2 = 230

| caption2 = Fifty-two crematorium ovens, including these, were used to burn the bodies of up to 6,000 people every 24 hours during the operation of Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers.{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005220 | title=The means of mass murder at Auschwitz: Gassing Operations |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia |date=20 June 2014 | access-date=12 July 2015 }}}}

As a matter of political training, some high-ranked Nazi Party leaders and SS officers were sent to Auschwitz–Birkenau to witness the gassings. As the Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss justified the extermination by explaining the need for "the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=328}}

After the gassings, the {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} removed the corpses from the gas chambers, then extracted any gold teeth. Initially, the victims were buried in mass graves, but were later cremated during {{lang|de|Sonderaktion 1005}} in all camps of Operation Reinhard.

The {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} was responsible for burning the corpses in the pits,{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} stoking the fires, draining surplus body fat and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses ... so that the draft might fan the flames", wrote Commandant Höss in his memoir while in the Polish custody.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} He was impressed by the diligence of prisoners from the so-called Special Detachment who carried out their duties despite their being well aware that they, too, would meet exactly the same fate in the end.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} At the Lazaret killing station they held the sick so they would never see the gun while being shot. They did it "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might, themselves, have been the exterminators", wrote Höss.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} He further said that the men ate and smoked "even when engaged in the grisly job of burning corpses which had been lying for some time in mass graves."{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} They occasionally encountered the corpse of a relative, or saw them entering the gas chambers. According to Höss, they were obviously shaken by this but "it never led to any incident". He mentioned the case of a {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} who found the body of his wife, yet continued to drag corpses along "as though nothing had happened".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}}

At Auschwitz, the corpses were incinerated in crematoria and the ashes either buried, scattered, or dumped in the river. At Sobibór, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Chełmno, the corpses were incinerated on pyres. The efficiency of industrialised murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau led to the construction of three buildings with crematoria designed by specialists from the firm J. A. Topf & Söhne. They burned bodies 24 hours a day, and yet the death rate was at times so high that corpses also needed to be burned in open-air pits.{{cite book |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |last1=Berenbaum |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Berenbaum |first2=Yisrael |last2=Gutman |year=1998 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20884-2|page=199|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrU2oS8fP3cC&pg=PA199 }}

The estimated total number of people who were murdered in the six Nazi extermination camps is 2.7 million, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.{{cite web |title=Killing Centers: An Overview |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/killing-centers-an-overview |website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org |access-date=10 June 2020 |language=en}} All six camps are located in present-day Poland.

File:Jewish prisoners forced to work for a Sonderkommando 1005 unit pose next to a bone crushing machine in the Janowska concentration camp.jpg. (Photo taken in August 1944, after camp's liberation)]]

The Nazis attempted to either partially or completely dismantle the extermination camps in order to hide any evidence that people had been murdered there. This was an attempt to conceal not only the extermination process but also the buried remains. As a result of the secretive {{lang|de|Sonderaktion 1005}}, the camps were dismantled by commandos of condemned prisoners, their records were destroyed, and the mass graves were dug up. Some extermination camps that remained uncleared of evidence were liberated by Soviet troops, who followed different standards of documentation and openness than the Western allies did.{{Citation |first=Yitzhak |last=Arad |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |title="Operation Reinhard": Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka|url-status = live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090318073143/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |archive-date = 18 March 2009|url = https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |work=Yad Vashem Studies XVI |year=1984 |pages= 205–239 (26/30 of current document) |quote=The Attempt to Remove Traces}}{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |author-link=Norman Davies |year=1998 |title=Europe: A History |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=0-06-097468-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/europehistory00norm }}

Nonetheless Majdanek was captured nearly intact due to the rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration.

In the post-war period the government of the People's Republic of Poland created monuments at the extermination camp sites. These early monuments mentioned no ethnic, religious, or national particulars of the Nazi victims. The extermination camps sites have been accessible to everyone in recent decades. They are popular destinations for visitors from all over the world, especially the most infamous Nazi death camp, Auschwitz near the town of Oświęcim. In the early 1990s, the Jewish Holocaust organisations debated with the Polish Catholic groups about "What religious symbols of martyrdom are appropriate as memorials in a Nazi death camp such as Auschwitz?" The Jews opposed the placement of Christian memorials such as the Auschwitz cross near Auschwitz I where mostly Poles were killed. The Jewish victims of the Holocaust were mostly killed at Auschwitz II Birkenau.

The March of the Living is organized in Poland annually since 1988.{{cite web| url=http://www.motl.org|website=motl.org|title= March of the Living International}} Marchers come from countries as diverse as Estonia, New Zealand, Panama, and Turkey.{{cite web| website=motl.org| url=http://www.marchoftheliving.org |title=March of the Living Canada}}

{{see also|Holocaust denial}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C0509-0049-006, KZ Treblinka, Wehrmacht-Frachtbrief.jpg}} consignment note for delivering prisoners ({{lang|de|Häftlinge}}) to Sobibór in November 1943.]]

Holocaust deniers or negationists are people and organizations who assert that the Holocaust did not occur, or that it did not occur in the historically recognized manner and extent.{{cite web|last1=Mathis|first1=Andrew E |title=Holocaust Denial: A Definition|url=http://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/denial/abc-clio/|publisher=ABC-CLIO|access-date=4 March 2017}} Holocaust deniers claim that the extermination camps were actually transit camps from which Jews were deported farther east. However, these theories are disproven by surviving German documents, which show that Jews were sent to the camps to be murdered.{{cite web |last1=Browning |first1=Christopher |author-link1=Christopher Browning |title=Browning: Evidence for the Implementation of the Final Solution |url=https://www.hdot.org/browning/ |website=Holocaust Denial on Trial |access-date=5 June 2020}}

Extermination camp research is difficult because of extensive attempts by the SS and Nazi regime to conceal the existence of the extermination camps. The existence of the extermination camps is firmly established by testimonies of camp survivors and Final Solution perpetrators, material evidence (the remaining camps, etc.), Nazi photographs and films of the killings, and camp administration records.{{cite book|last1=Hobbs |first1=Joseph Patrick |title=Dear General: Eisenhower's Wartime Letters to Marshall |date= 1999|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=0801862191}}{{cite web|url=http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/index.php/en/archives-and-documentation/the-cdjc-catalogue/the-history-of-the-center-of-contemporary-jewish-documentation-cdjc |title=The History of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316150400/http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/index.php/en/archives-and-documentation/the-cdjc-catalogue/the-history-of-the-center-of-contemporary-jewish-documentation-cdjc |archive-date=16 March 2015}}

In 2017 a Körber Foundation survey found that 40 percent of 14-year-olds in Germany did not know what Auschwitz was.{{cite news |title=Auschwitz-Birkenau: 4 out of 10 German students don't know what it was |url=https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |publisher=Deutsche Welle |date=28 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928204158/https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |archive-date=28 September 2017|url-status = live}}{{cite news |last=Posener | first=Alan |author-link=Alan Posener |title=German TV Is Sanitizing History |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/dont-mention-the-war-germany-television-holocaust-anti-semitism-babylon-berlin-europe/ |work=Foreign Policy |date=9 April 2018}} A 2018 survey organized in the United States by the Claims Conference, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and others found that 66 percent of the American millennials who were surveyed (and 41 percent of all U.S. adults) did not know what Auschwitz was.{{cite news |title=New Survey by Claims Conference Finds Significant Lack of Holocaust Knowledge in the United States |url=http://www.claimscon.org/study |publisher=Claims Conference |date=2018|archive-url=https://archive.today/20180412152716/http://www.claimscon.org/study|archive-date=12 April 2018|url-status=live}}{{pb}}

{{cite news |last1=Astor |first1=Maggie |title=Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |work=The New York Times |date=12 April 2018 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20180418071414/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |archive-date=18 April 2018|url-status=live}} In 2019, a survey of 1,100 Canadians found that 49 percent of them could not name any of the Nazi camps which were located in German-occupied Europe.{{cite news |last1=Stober |first1=Eric |title=Nearly half of Canadians can't name a single concentration camp: survey |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/4893788/holocaust-survey-canada/ |publisher=Global News |date=26 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190127053753/https://globalnews.ca/news/4893788/holocaust-survey-canada/ |archive-date=27 January 2019|url-status=live}}

{{Main|Outline of genocide studies}}

• German camps in occupied Poland during World War II
• List of Nazi extermination camps and euthanasia centers
• "Polish death camp" controversy
• Topf and Sons
• War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Main|Bibliography of genocide studies}}

• {{cite book |first=Yitzhak|last=Arad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpAgHYTPRz0C&q=operation%20reinhard%20gypsies&pg=PA153 |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-253-21305-1 }}
• {{cite book |last=Bartov |first=Omer |author-link=Omer Bartov |title=The Holocaust: origins, implementation, aftermath |publisher=Routledge |location=London |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-15035-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TL_3vEzlwQEC |via=Google Books }}
• {{cite book |last=Cox |first=John K. |editor-last=Fischer |editor-first=Bernd Jürgen |editor-link=Bernd Jürgen Fischer |year=2007 |title=Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South Eastern Europe |chapter=Ante Pavelić and the Ustaša State in Croatia |publisher=Purdue University Press |location=West Lafayette, Indiana |isbn=978-1-55753-455-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qMZaPjrHqYYC&q=Paveli%C4%87 |via=Google Books |lccn=60-5808}}
• {{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Gilbert |title=Holocaust Journey: Travelling in search of the past |publisher=Phoenix |year=1997 |isbn=0-231-10965-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AAg4D2xaNV0C |via=Google Books |quote=An account of the locations of the extermination camps as they are today, augmented by the historical information about them, and about the fate of the Jews of Poland.}}
• {{cite book |last=Höss |first=Rudolf |title=Commandant of Auschwitz. The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess with an Introduction by Lord Russett |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/53192374/Rudolf-Hoess-Commandant-of-auschwitz |others=Translation Constantine FitzGibbon |publisher=The World Publishing Company |location=Cleveland and New York |format=PDF |via=direct download: 16.7 MB from Scribd |year=1959 |access-date=15 January 2015 |author-link=Rudolf Höss |pages=1–311}}
• {{cite book |last=Klee |first=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Klee |title='Turning the tap on was no big deal': the gassing doctors during the Nazi period and afterwards |publisher=Dachau Review |volume=2 |year=1990 |isbn=3-9808587-1-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WQtnAAAAMAAJ&q=gassing%2Bdoctors |via=Google Books' snippet }}
• {{cite book |last=Levi |first=Primo |author-link=Primo Levi |title=The Drowned and the Saved |publisher=Michael Joseph |location=London |year=1986 |isbn=0-7181-3063-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZURT6FgGgUkC |via=Google Books }}
• {{cite book |last=Mojzes |first=Paul |title=Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4422-0663-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KwW2O7v7CUcC&q=Jadovno |via=Google Books }}
• {{cite book |last=Orth |first=Karin |authorlink=Karin Orth |entry=The Genesis and Structure of the National Socialist Concentration Camps |title=Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) |date=2009a |publisher=Indiana University Press |series=Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 |volume=1 |isbn=978-0-253-35328-3 |pages=183–196}}
• {{cite book |last=Piper |first=Franciszek |author-link=Franciszek Piper |editor1-last=Gutman |editor1-first=Yisrael |editor1-link= Yisrael Gutman |editor2-last=Berenbaum |editor2-first=Michael |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |chapter=Gas Chambers and Crematoria |year=1994 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indiana |isbn=0-253-32684-2 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/anatomyofauschwi00yisr/page/157 }}
• {{cite book |first=Laurence |last=Rees |title=Auschwitz: A New History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_78iBQAAQBAJ |date= 2006 |publisher=Public Affairs |isbn=978-1-58648-357-9 }}

{{commons category|Nazi extermination camps}}

• The Holocaust History Project, [https://web.archive.org/web/20040919010250/http://www.holocaust-history.org/ Quick Facts on the Holocaust.] Essays, Documents, Reproductions. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
• [http://www.polishjews.org/shoah/index.htm Holocaust and concentration camps information]
• [http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team]
• [https://archive.org/stream/nazi_concentration_camps/nazi_concentration_camps_256kb.mp4 Official U.S. National Archive Footage of Nazi camps]
• [https://archive.org/details/BelzecSobiborTreblinka.HolocaustDenialAndOperationReinhard.ACritique Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard.]

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