Chelmno Death Camp by Sydney Perkins

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 17:54:02 UTC

Chelmno was the first stationary facility where poison gas was used for the mass murder of Jews.

Location

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 17:54:54 UTC

Located about 30 miles northwest of Lodz along the Ner River, a tributary of the Warta River in today’s west central Poland

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 17:59:22 UTC

What is left of Chelmno now

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:02:01 UTC

Chelmno

When it came in effect

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:03:35 UTC

It opened in December 1941 and closed in January 1945

Executed

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:04:22 UTC

170,000 to 360,000 Jews

Who

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:05:55 UTC

The victims were from the Łódź ghetto and from 36 communities in western Poland. Also sent to Chelmno were 88 children from the Czech town of Lidice

Included...

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:07:16 UTC

Chelmno had three gas vans and two crematoria that were 32.5 feet wide and 16–19 feet long.

In charge

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:08:40 UTC

The SS and police carried out killing operations at Chelmno on the authority of the Higher SS and Police Leader for Wartheland District, SS General Wilhelm Koppe.

Location of Chelmno

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:10:02 UTC

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:13:06 UTC

Chelmno acquired a special reputation for its “efficient” bone-crushing machine (Knochenmühle)

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:13:39 UTC

From August 1944 to January 1945 the SS burned and obliterated Chelmno’s installations and sought to kill all known inmates, in an attempt to erase all traces of the camp

Survivor

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:16:57 UTC

In mid-January 1942, Yaakov Grojanowski escaped and made his way to Warsaw, where he informed the ghetto leadership of what he had witnessed

Survivor's Story

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:18:12 UTC

Deportation

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:20:52 UTC

Deportation

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:23:04 UTC

From early December 1941 until mid-January 1942, the SS and police deported Jews by truck from nearby towns and villages; the first transports included Jews from Kolo, Dabie, Sompolno, Klodowa, Babiak, and Kowale Panskie. From mid-January 1942, SS and police authorities deported Jews in crowded freight trains from the Lodz ghetto to Chelmno. These transports included Jews deported to Lodz from Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, and Luxemburg

Forest Camps

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:25:35 UTC

Used for renewed killings, the SS and police officials guarded the Jewish victims as they undressed and gave up valuables. Then they killed the Jews either by asphyxiation in a gas van or by shooting.

Escaped Jews

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:27:53 UTC

Seven Jews are known to have escaped from Chelmno; all worked in the burial detachment. Mordechai Podchlebnik, Milnak Meyer, Abraham Tauber, Abram Roj, and a mysterious "Szlamek," whose actual identity has never been fully established, escaped during the winter of 1942; Mordechai Zurawski and Simon Srebnik escaped from the labor detail dismantling the killing center in January 1945.

Hiding the Evidence

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:29:44 UTC

Beginning in September 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners was forced to exhume and cremate any remaining corpses from the mass graves at Chelmno as part of Operation 1005 and to obliterate any other evidence of mass murder operations. The SS and police shot about half of the 80-man detachment after this work was done in November 1944. The Germans abandoned the Chelmno killing center on January 17, 1945, as the Soviet army approached.

Sources

sydneyperkins — 2024-04-29 18:34:20 UTC

Holocaust Encyclopedia https://encylopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/chelmno

Britannica

Britannica.com/place/Chelmno-concentration-camp-Poland