Death camps

• Final Solution


  The Nazi's plan to kill every Jewish person in Nazi-occupied land
• The Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was designed


  January 1942
• SS head Heinrich Himmler


  • Responsible for running the death camps
• 6 death camps with gas chambers were built in Poland
• 60% of Jews killed during the Holocaust were killed after 1942, after the Wannsee Conference
• Most of the Jews killed during the Holocaust were from Central and Eastern Europe
• How people were transported to death camps


  1. Most reached death camps like Auschwitz and Chelmno by train

  2. Some voluntarily paid for their transport tickets, assuming they would not be killed
• Most Germans did not know exactly what happened at the death camps
• Death camps


  • Most people were killed in gas chambers
  • Zyklon-B gas or carbon monoxide gas was used
  • Bodies were incinerated in the crematorium
• Who died at the death camps


  • Jewish people
  • Homosexual people
  • Communist supporters
  • Slav people
  • Black people
  • Prisoners of war
  • Political opponents of the Nazis
  • Roma (or gypsy) people
  • Disabled people
• The 6 deadliest death (or extermination) camps were set up in Poland: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Majdanek
• Chelmno


  • A camp just north of the Polish town, Lodz
  • 320,000 people were killed using carbon monoxide gas from car exhaust fumes
  • This was viewed as efficient with lower psychological impact on German soldiers
• Operation Reinhard


  1. A plan to kill every Jew in the 'General Government' district of Poland

  2. New extermination camps were built: Belzec in March 1942, Sobibor in May 1942, Treblinka in July 1942
• In the Sobibor extermination camp in 1943, Jewish prisoners killed 11 SS guards, led by Alexander Pechersky. 240 of the Jews who escaped Sobibor died, however, 60 escaped and survived the war
• 1.7 million Polish Jews died in the extermination camps
• Auschwitz


  • The Germans built a camp at Oswiecim, a small Polish village, in October 1940
  • The Nazis used the insecticide gas Zyklon B to kill prisoners
  • There were 4 different gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau
  • 1.1 million people were killed at the Auschwitz death camp
  • There was also a work camp at Auschwitz for forced labour
  • Hungary lost more citizens at Auschwitz than any other country, with 565,000 Hungarian Jews murdered there
• Destroying evidence of the death camps


  1. As the Soviet Red Army marched towards Poland, Himmler ordered all gas chambers to be destroyed

  2. In January 1945, Auschwitz was abandoned and 56,000 prisoners were forced to march 40 miles, with thousands dying due to the cold temperatures