The Chełmno extermination camp was a Nazi extermination camp that was situated 70 km from Łódź near a small village called Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr, in German), in Greater Poland (which was, in 1939, annexed and incorporated into Germany under the name of Reichsgau Wartheland). It was the first extermination camp, opened in 1941 to kill the Jews of the Łódź Ghetto and the Warthegau; it was the first camp to use poison gas.

At least 152,000 people were killed in the camp, mainly Jews from the Łódź Ghetto and the surrounding area, along with Gypsies from Greater Poland and some Hungarian Jews, Poles, Czechs and Soviet prisoners of war.

Operation of the Camp

The death camp operated from December 8, 1941 until April 1943 when it was closed down and its crematorium blown up. In spring 1944 it was reestablished and closed down again in fall 1944. A special SS Sonderkommando called Sonderkommando Kulmhof gassed people with exhaust fumes and then burnt them. The first commandant was Herbert Lange. The camp consisted of three parts: an administration section, barracks and storage for plundered goods; and a burial and cremation site. It operated three gas vans using carbon monoxide.

Adolf Eichmann testified about the camp during his trial. He visited in late 1942.

A gas-van driver named Walter Burmeister testified: E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess. The Good Old Days. The Free Press, NY, 1988., p. 219-220

As soon as the ramp had been erected in the castle, people started arriving in Kulmhof from Lizmannstadt (Łódź) in lorries... The people were told that they had to take a bath, that their clothes had to be disinfected and that they could hand in any valuable items beforehand to be registered...

When they had undressed they were sent to the cellar of the castle and then along a passageway on to the ramp and from there into the gas-van. In the castle there were signs marked "to the baths". The gas vans were large vans, about 4-5 m long, 2.2 m wide and 2 m high. The interior walls were lined with sheet metal. On the floor there was a wooden grille. The floor of the van had an opening which could be connected to the exhaust by means of a removable metal pipe. When the lorries were full of people the double doors at the back were closed and the exhaust connected to the interior of the van...

The commando member detailed as driver would start the engine right away so that the people inside the lorry were suffocated by the exhaust gases. Once this had taken place, the union between the exhaust and the inside of the lorry was disconnected and the van was driven to the camp in the woods where the bodies were unloaded. In the early days they were initially burned in mass graves, later incinerated... I then drove the van back to the castle and parked it there. Here it would be cleaned of the excretions of the people that had died in it. Afterwards it would once again be used for gassing.

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