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The extermination camps were the facilities set up by Nazi Germany in World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe. Members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such as Roma (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, Poles and many others, were also killed in these camps. Prisoners at these camps were not expected to live more than 24 hours beyond arrival. This was part of what has become known as the Holocaust.

Terminology

The terms extermination camp or death camp (German: Vernichtungslager) specifically refer to the camps whose primary function was genocide. Modern historians (e.g. Bracher, Bullock, Dawidowicz) refer to the gassing camps as extermination camps or annihilation camps to distinguish them from 'normal' concentration camps. No evidence has been referenced providing instances of Nazi usage of the term Vernichtungslager.

Extermination camps are distinguished from concentration camps (such as Dachau and Belsen), which were mostly located in Germany and intended as places of incarceration and forced labour for a variety of "enemies of the state" of the Nazi regime (such as Communists and homosexuals). In the early years of the Nazi regime, many Jews were sent to these camps, but after 1942 all Jews were deported to the extermination camps.

They should also be distinguished from slave labor camps, which were set up in all German-occupied countries to exploit the labor of prisoners of various kinds, including prisoners of war. Many Jews were worked to death in these camps, but eventually the Jewish labor force, no matter how useful to the German war effort, was destined for extermination. In all Nazi camps there were very high death rates as a result of starvation, disease, exhaustion, and extreme brutality, but only the extermination camps were designed specifically for mass killing.

The distinction between extermination camps and concentration camps was recognized by the Nazis themselves. When one of Eichmann's deputies, Dieter Wisliceny, was interrogated at Nuremberg, he was asked for the names of 'extermination camps', and answered referring to Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. When asked 'How do you classify camps Mauthausen, Dachau and Buchenwald?' he replied 'They were normal concentration camps from the point of view of the department of Eichmann.'

The camps

Most accounts of the Holocaust recognise six extermination camps, all located in occupied Poland. These were:

• Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) (Auschwitz I was a concentration camp and Auschwitz III a labor camp)
• Belzec
• Chelmno (German: Kulmhof an der Nehr, Polish: Chelmno nad Nerem)
• Majdanek
• Sobibór
• Treblinka

Of these, Auschwitz II and Chelmno were located within areas of western Poland annexed by Germany - the other four were located within the General Government area.

Another two death camps were located outside Poland:

• Jasenovac extermination camp was operated by Croatian Nazi Ustaše puppet regime, and had Serbs as its primary victims. However, Jews, Gypsies and political prisoners were also killed there, like in other concentration camps. The genocide in Jasenovac was committed by Croatian Ustashe, who had a racial extermination programme, formulated by Mile Budak, before and independently of the Wannsee plan. Croatian Ustashe started exterminating Serbs at such a pace and with such enthusiasm, that in late 1941 German Nazis decided to take measures to restrain the genocide, before they resorted to similar actions in their death camps. Overall, the death toll makes Jasenovac the third most productive in Holocaust, and the only one which did not have Jews as main target.

• Maly Trostenets, a much less known camp than the other, was located at Maly Trostenets, in present-day Belarus.

Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibór were constructed during Operation Reinhard, the codename for the systematic killing of the Jews of Europe, widely known under the euphemism, the "final solution of the Jewish question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage). The operation was decided at the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 and carried out under the administrative control of Adolf Eichmann.

While Auschwitz II was part of a labour camp complex, and Majdanek also had a labour camp, the Reinhard camps and Chelmno were pure extermination camps, built solely to kill vast numbers of Jews within hours of arrival – the only prisoners sent to these camps not immediately murdered were those used as slave labour directly concerning the extermination process (e.g. to remove the corpses from the gas chambers). These camps were small in size – only several hundred meters on each side – as only minimal housing and support facilities were required. Arriving persons were told that they were merely at a transit stop for relocation east.

In addition, many non-Jews were also killed in these camps - Serbs were main victims in Jasenovac, while many (non-Jewish) Poles and Soviet prisoners of war were killed in the other death camps.

The number of people killed at these death camps has been estimated as follows:

• Auschwitz II: about 1,100,000
• Belzec: 436,000
• Chelmno: 340,000
• Majdanek: 78,000 - 235,000
• Sobibór: 260,000
• Treblinka: at least 700,000, possibly over 1,000,000
• Jasenovac: 500,000-840,000
• Maly Trostenets: at least 200,000, possibly over 500,000

This gives a total of at least 3,600,000, and possibly 4,600,000. Of these, over 80% were Jews. These camps thus accounted for about half the total number of Jews killed in the entire Nazi Holocaust, including almost the whole Jewish population of Poland.

Operation of the camps

The method of killing at these camps was typically poison gas, usually in "gas chambers", although many prisoners were killed in mass shootings, starvation or sadism. Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz, wrote after the war that many of the Einsatzkommandos involved in the mass shootings went mad or committed suicide, "unable to endure wading through blood any longer". The bodies of those killed were destroyed in crematoria (except at Sobibór where they were cremated on outdoor pyres), and the ashes buried or scattered.

The camps differed slightly in operation, but all were designed to kill as efficiently as possible. SS Lt. Kurt Gerstein, who worked in the SS medical service, for example, testified to a Swedish diplomat during the war about what he had seen at the camps. He describes how he arrived at Belzec on August 19 1942 (at the time, the camp was still using primarily carbon monoxide from a gas engine in its gas chambers), where he was proudly shown the unloading of 45 train cars stuffed with 6700 Jews, many of whom were already dead, but the rest were marched naked to the gas chambers, where, he said:

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 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 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 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!"

According to Hoess, the first time Zyklon B was used on the Jews, many suspected they would be killed, despite being led to believe that they were only being deloused. As a result, pains were taken to single out possibly "difficult individuals" in future gassings, so they could be separated and shot unobtrusively. Members of the Special Detachment — a group of Jewish prisoners from the camp assigned to help carry out the exterminations — were also made to accompany the Jews into the gas chamber and remain with them until the doors closed. A guard from the SS also stood at the door to perpetuate the "calming effect". To avoid giving the prisoners time to think about their fate, they were urged to undress as speedily as possible, with the Special Detachment helping those who might slow down the process.

The Special Detachment reassured the Jews being gassed by talking of life in the camp, and tried to persuade them that all would be alright. Many Jewish women secreted their infants beneath their clothes once they had undressed, because they feared the disinfectant would harm them. Hoess wrote that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this," and would encourage the womenfolk to bring their children along. The Special Detachment men were also responsible for comforting older children that might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion".

These measures did not deceive all, however. Hoess reported of several Jews "who either guessed or knew what awaited them nevertheless" but still "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 were immediately led away by the Special Detachment men to be shot. Some others instead "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding" before being led into the gas chamber.

Once the door was sealed with the victims inside, powdered Zyklon B would be shaken down through special holes in the roof of the chamber. The camp commandant was required to witness every gassing carried out through a peephole, and supervise both the preparations and the aftermath. Hoess reported that the gassed corpses "showed no signs of convulsion"; the doctors at Auschwitz attributed this to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" that Zyklon B had, which ensured death came on before convulsions could begin.

After the gassings had been carried out, the Special Detachment men would remove the bodies, extract the gold teeth and shave the hair of the corpses before bringing them to the crematoria or the pits. In either case, the bodies would be cremated, with the men of the Special Detachment responsible for stoking the fires, draining off the surplus fat, and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses" so that the flames would constantly be fanned. Hoess found the attitude and dedication of the Special Detachment amazing. Despite them being "well aware that ... they, too, would meet exactly the same fate," they managed to carry out their duties "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might themselves have been the exterminators". According to Hoess, many of the the Special Detachment men ate and smoked while they worked, "even when engaged on the grisly job of burning corpses". Occasionally, they would come across the body of a close relative, but although they "were obviously affected by this, ... it never led to any incident." Hoess cited the case of a man who, while carrying bodies from the gas chamber to the fire pit, found the corpse of his wife, but behaved "as though nothing had happened."

Some high-ranking leaders from the Nazi Party and the SS were sent to Auschwitz on occasion to witness the gassings. Hoess wrote that although "all were deeply impressed by what they saw," some "who had previously spoken most loudly about the necessity for this extermination fell silent once they had actually seen the 'final solution of the Jewish problem.'" Hoess was repeatedly asked how he could stomach the exterminations. He justified them by explaining "the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders", but found that even " Eichmann, who certainly tough enough, had no wish to change places with me."

Post war

As the Soviet armed forces advanced into Poland in 1944, the camps were closed and partly or completely dismantled to conceal what had taken place in them. The postwar Polish Communist government further partly dismantled the camps, and generally allowed the sites to decay. Monuments of various kinds were erected at the sites of the former camps; these usually did not mention that most of the people killed in them were Jews.

After the fall of communism in 1989, the camp sites became more accessible and have become centres of tourism, particularly at Auschwitz, the best-known of them. There has been a series of disputes between the Jewish organizations and the Polish about what is appropriate at these sites. Some Jewish groups have objected strongly to the erection of Christian memorials at the camps. In the most notable case (the Auschwitz cross), the cross was located near concentration camp Auschwitz I, where most of the victims were Poles, not the extermination camp Auschwitz II.

Holocaust denial

Some groups and individuals deny the existence of Nazi extermination camps. For example, Robert Faurisson claimed in 1979 that "the Nazis did not have gas chambers and did not attempt a genocide of Jews. He contended that the 'myth' of the gas chambers had been promoted by Zionists...for the benefit of the state of Israel and to the detriment of Germans and Palestinians."

Scholars and historians point out that Holocaust denial is contradicted by the testimonies of survivors and perpetrators, material evidence, and photographs, as well as by the Nazis' own record-keeping. Efforts such as the Nizkor Project, Deborah Lipstadt, John Keegan, Raul Hilberg who published The Destruction of the European Jews, Lucy Davidowicz published The War Against the Jews, Norman Davies, Primo Levi, Simon Wiesenthal and his Simon Wiesenthal Center, and more at Holocaust resources, all track and explain Holocaust denial.

Notes

1. Richard Overy, Interrogations, p 356-7 (Penguin 2002, ISBN 0-140-28454-0)
2. A recent study radically revised downward the estimated number of deaths at Majdanek. According to a piece "Majdanek Victims Enumerated" by Paweł P. Reszka, Lublin, Gazeta Wyborcza 12 December 2005, reproduced on the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, Lublin scholar Tomasz Kranz has recently established this number, and the Majdanek museum staff consider it to be authoritative. Earlier estimates were considerably higher: 360,000, in a much-cited 1948 publication by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz, a judge who was a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, and 235,000, from a 1992 article by Dr. Czesaw Rajca, now retired from the Majdanek museum staff.
3. Hoss, Rudolf (2005). I, the Commandant of Auschwitz. In Lewis, Jon E. (Ed.), True War Stories, p. 321. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-1533-2.
4. Hoss, pp. 321–322.
5. Hoss, pp. 322–323.
6. Hoss, p. 323.
7. Hoss, p. 324.
8. Hoss, pp. 320, 328.
9. Hoss, pp. 325–326.
10. Hoss, p. 328.

Further reading

• Holocaust Journey: Travelling in Search of the Past, Martin Gilbert, Phoenix 1997, gives a good account of the sites of the extermination camps as they are today, plus a great deal of historical information about them and about the fate of the Jews of Poland.

External links

• Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust

• Nazi extermination camps