Chełmno
Extermination camp
Monument to victims of Nazi extermination camp Kulmhof in occupied Poland, unveiled at the site of the camp in 1990
Location of Chełmno in Poland
Coordinates	52°6′49″N 18°44′55″E / 52.11361°N 18.74861°E / 52.11361; 18.74861
Known for	Genocide during The Holocaust
Location	Near Chełmno nad Nerem, General Government (German-occupied Poland)
Original use	Death
Operational	8 December 1941 – March 1943, June 1944 – 18 January 1945.[1]
Number of gas chambers	3 vans
Inmates	mainly Jews
Killed	est. 152,000–340,000
Liberated by	Soviet Union, 01945-01-20January 20, 1945
Notable inmates	Mordechaï Podchlebnik, Simon Srebnik, Yakov Grojanowski

Chełmno extermination camp, also known as the Kulmhof concentration camp, was a Nazi German extermination camp situated 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Łódź, near a small village called Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr in German). After the invasion of Poland by Germany Kulmhof was annexed into the territory of Reichsgau Wartheland in 1939. The camp operated in two periods, from 01941-12-08December 8, 1941 to 01943-03-01March 1943 during Aktion Reinhard (the most deadly phase of the Holocaust), and from 01944-06-01June 1944 to 01945-01-18January 18, 1945 during the Soviet counter-offensive. It was specifically built for annihilation of the remaining Polish Jews of the Łódź Ghetto and the local Polish inhabitants of Reichsgau Wartheland (Warthegau).^[2] In between these two periods, modifications were made to the camp's killing procedure.^[3]

At least 152,000 people (Bohn) were killed in the camp,^[1] with estimates based on statistical approach from early postwar period reaching 340,000 (GKBZNwP).^[2] The victims were mainly Polish Jews from the Łódź Ghetto and the surrounding area along with Romani from Greater Poland; and subsequently also from Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, Luxemburg, Austria as well as the Soviet prisoners of war. Most of the victims were killed by the use of gas vans. The camp served the purpose of early experimentation and development of methods of mass murder, some of which were applied in later phases of the Holocaust. Only two people are known to have survived Chełmno extermination camp, with some sources suggesting a third survivor.^[4] Seven Jews from the burial Sonderkommando have escaped according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.^[1]

Architecture [edit]

The killing center consisted of a vacated manorial estate in the town of Chełmno itself and a large forest clearing about 4 km (2.5 mi) northwest of Chełmno off the east side of the road to Koło and abutting the village of Rzuchów to the south. These sites were known respectively as the Schlosslager (manor-house camp) and the Waldlager (forest camp).^[5] On the grounds of the estate was a large two-story brick country house called "the palace",^[6] which contained the reception offices, including rooms for undressing and for relinquishing valuables. The SS and police staff and guards were housed in other buildings in the town.^[7] The manor house and the grounds were encircled by a high wooden fence. The clearing in the forest camp, which contained space for mass graves, was likewise fenced off. The camp consisted of three parts: an administration section, barracks and storage for plundered goods; and a burial and cremation site.

Command structure [edit]

The initiative for the establishment of an extermination centre at Chełmno came from the Governor (Reichsstatthalter) of the Reichsgau Wartheland, Arthur Greiser. In a letter to Himmler dated 30 May 1942, Greiser referred to an authorisation he had previously received from him and Heydrich, for the Sonderbehandlung (Special Handling, i.e. mass execution without judicial process)^[8] of 100,000 Jews, about one-third of the total Jewish population of the Wartheland territory. The letter stated that the process of killing those Jews was expected to be completed very soon. One theory is that Greiser's request arose from the German Government decision of October 1941 to deport German Jews to the Łódź Ghetto (Litzmannstadt) in central Poland. Greiser wanted to create space for the incoming German Jews by killing off part of the existing Polish Jewish population.

According to post-war testimony by the Higher SS and Police Leader for Reichsgau Wartheland, SS General Wilhelm Koppe, he received an order from Himmler to liaise with Reichsstatthalter Greiser for the purpose of carrying out the Sonderbehandlung requested by the latter. Koppe entrusted the extermination operation to SS-Standartenführer Ernst Damzog, Commander of Security Police and SD from the headquarters in occupied Poznań (Posen), who personally selected staff for the killing centre and later supervised its daily operation.^[9] Damzog formed an SS-Sonderkommando (special detachment) under SS Captain Herbert Lange. Lange had previous experience of killing Poles in the Wartheland region (Wielkopolska) during the Euthanasia Aktion of mid-1940, using a mobile gas-chamber and shootings.^[10] In October 1941, Lange toured the area looking for a suitable site for an extermination centre, and finally chose Chełmno (Kulmhof) because of the estate situated there.

A model of Magirus-Deutz gas van used by the Nazis for suffocation at the Chelmno extermination camp, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van has not been modified yet as explained by Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality (1946),^[11] nevertheless it gives a good idea about the process

The SS-Sonderkommando "Lange" was supplied with three gas vans as the killing mechanism, assigned by the RSHA in Berlin. These vehicles had been converted to mobile gas-chambers by the use of sealed compartments installed on the chassis, into which the engine exhaust was directed by an attached pipe. The vans had been used successfuly in September 1941 for the killing of mental patients in the occupied Soviet Union. For all practical purposes, the extermination with the help of mobile gas vans proved very efficient. On June 5, 1942 inspector Becker wrote to Obersturmbannfuhrer Rauff in RSHA that, by using just three vans on the Eastern Front (the Opel-Blitz and the larger Saurerwagen), without any faults, they were able to process 97,000 Soviet captives in less than six months between December 1941 and June 1942.^[12]

The rank and file of the so-called SS Special Detachment Lange was made up of Gestapo, Criminal Police, and Order Police personnel, under the leadership of Security Police and SD officers. Lange was replaced as camp commandant in March (or April) 1942 by Schultze, and then by SS-Captain Hans Bothmann,^[13] who formed and led the Special Detachment Bothmann. The maximum strength of each Special Detachment was just under 100 men, of whom around 80 belonged to the Order Police.

The local SS also maintained a "paper command" of the camps Allgemeine-SS inspectorate, to which most of the Chełmno camp staff were attached for administrative purposes. The 120th SS-Standarte office established in Chełmno is believed to have never actively performed any actual duties.

Killings begin [edit]

The SS and police began killing operations at Chełmno on December 8, 1941.^[14] The first people brought to the camp to be murdered were the Jewish and Romany populations of Koło, Dąbie, Sompolno, Kłodawa, Babiak, Izbica Kujawska, Bugaj, Nowiny Brdowskie and Kowale Pańskie,^[1][15] for the total of 3,830 Jews and around 4,000 Gypsies gassed before February 1942.^[13] The victims were brought from all over Koło County to Powiercie by rail. Using whips, the Nazis marched them toward the river near Zawadki, where they were locked overnight in a mill, without food or water. The next morning, they were loaded onto lories and taken to Chełmno, then transferred to vans and gassed with exhaust fumes on the way to the burial pits. The daily average was about 6 to 9 loads of the dead. The drivers used gas-masks.^[13][14] From January 1942 the transports included hundreds of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war as well as Jews from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Luxemburg, transported via the ghetto in Łódź, a railroad hub.^[1]

In late January, 1942, the secretary of the local council, Stanisław Kaszyński, and his wife were arrested. He was executed three days later for trying to bring public attention to what was being perpetrated at the camp. His letter was intercepted by the SS-Sonderkommando.^[16]

Murder procedure [edit]

During the first five weeks, the murder victims originated from the nearby areas.^[1] They were transported to the manor house (Schlosslager) in Chełmno under the guard of Special Detachment called SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof commanded by Herbert Lange. The victims, mostly Jews, disembarked at the courtyard and entered the manor house, where the SS-men wearing white coats were waiting for them, pretending to be medics. The deportees were told to undress for bath, and to have their clothes disinfected before transport to Germany and Austria. Occasionally they were met by a German officer dressed as a local squire with a feather hat, announcing that some of them would remain there.^[17] The Jews were led to a special room to strip and hand over their valuables.^[1] They were told that all hidden banknotes would be destroyed during steaming and needed to be taken out and handed over for safe-keeping. Wearing just underwear and slips,^[15] they were taken to the cellar and across the ramp into the back of a gas van holding from 50-70 people each (Opel Blitz) and up to 150 (Magirus). When the van was full, the doors were shut and the engine was started, pumping fumes into the rear compartment.^[11] After about 5-10 minutes of screaming the victims were killed by asphyxiation. The van, now full of corpses, was driven 4 km (2.5 mi) to the forest Waldlager camp, to previously excavated mass graves, and unloaded there by the Waldkommando, before returning to the manor house.^[1]

Chelmno extermination camp did not have direct rail connections. Jews were delivered by train to Koło, then to nearby Powiercie, and in overcrowded lories to camp while abandoning their bundles along the way. They were compelled to undress at the manor house in Chełmno for transport to bath unaware, that it was the last step of their lifes' journey. In this photo, loading of victims sent from the ghetto in Łódź

Murder of Jews from the Łódź ghetto [edit]

On January 16, 1942, the SS and police began deportations from the Łódź Ghetto. German officials transported the Jews from Łódź by train to Koło railway station, six miles (10 km) northwest of Chełmno. There, the SS and police personnel supervised transfer of the Jews from the freight as well as passenger trains,^[18] to smaller size cargo trains running on a narrow-gauge track, which took them from Koło to the Powiercie station,^[19] three miles (5 km) northwest of Chełmno. Beginning in late July 1942, the victims were brought to the camp without the need for disembarking and switching trains at Koło. This was because the regular railway line linking Koło with Dąbie was restored as the bridge over the Rgilewka river was repaired.^[20]

As round-ups in Łódź normally took place in the morning, it was usually late afternoon by the time the victims arrived by rail. Therefore they were marched to a disused mill at Zawadki some two kilometres from Powiercie where they spent the night. The mill continued to be used if transports arrived late even after the railway repairs.^[21] The following morning the Jews were transported from Zawadki by truck, in numbers which could be easily controlled at their destination point. They were processed immediately upon arrival at the manor-house camp.^[22]

Sonderkommando [edit]

Jewish prisoners were selected from incoming transports to join the camp Sonderkommando, a "special unit" of 50 to 60 men deployed at the forest burial camp. They removed corpses from the gas-vans and buried them in the mass graves. Because the graves quickly filled and the smell of decomposing bodies began to permeate the surrounding area including nearby villages, in the spring of 1942 the SS ordered the bodies to be burned on open air "grids" made of concrete with pipes used for air ducts and long ash pans in the forest.^[23] Later, Jewish Sonderkommando members were also responsible for exhuming the graves and burning the previously interred bodies. In addition, they sorted the clothing of the victims and cleaned the excrement and blood in the vans. Another small detachment of about 15 Jews worked at the manor house, sorting and packing the belongings of the victims. Between eight and ten skilled craftsmen produced or repaired goods for the SS Special Detachment.^[3]

An authentic remnant of the open-air mass cremation structure at the forest camp, with memorial plaque

Periodically, the SS executed the members of the Jewish special detachment to replace them with laborers selected from more recent transports. The SS would also hold jumping contests and races among the prisoners, who were shackled with chains on their ankles, to deem who was fit to continue working. The losers of these contests were shot.^[3]

Camp operation [edit]

The early killing process carried out by the SS from December 8, 1941 until mid January 1942, was targeted at removal of Jews and Poles from all nearby towns and villages which were slated for German colonization (Lebensraum). From mid-January 1942, the SS and Order Police began transporting Jews in crowded freight and passenger trains from Łódź.^[18] These transports included Jews deported from Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Luxembourg, as well as most of the 5,000 Roma (Gypsies) who had been deported from Austria. Throughout 1942, the Jews from Wartheland were still being processed until March 1943 when the district was finally declared "judenfrei". Other victims murdered at the killing center included several hundred Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war.^[24]

During the summer of 1942 serious modifications were made to the camp's killing procedure by new commandant Bothmann. It was the result of two incidents that occurred in March and April. First, the gas-van broke down on the highway full of still living victims. The loud cries from the inside were heard by many passers-by. Soon later, the Sauer van exploded while revving its engine at the loading ramp with the gassing compartment full of still living Jews. The explosion blew off the locked back door, and badly burned the victims inside. Drivers were replaced. There's evidence that soon later some poison was added to gasoline (red powder and a fluid) delivered from Germany by Maks Sado freight company.^[25]

After having annihilated almost all Jews of Wartheland District, in March 1943 the Chełmno death factory was closed while the Operation Reinhard was still underway elswhere (with much faster methods of killing and incinerating people). Chełmno was not a part of Reinhard. The SS ordered complete demolition of Schlosslager along with the manor house which was levelled. From 1943 onwards to hide the evidence of the SS committed war crimes, all decaying bodies were exhumed and gradually burned in open-air cremation pits by a unit of Sonderkommando 1005.^[24][26] The bones, crushed on cement with mallets were added to ashes, and transported in sacks made of blankets to river Warta (or the Ner River) on the other side of Zawadka, to be dumped into the water from a flat-bottomed boat or from a bridge, every night.^[27] Eventually, a bone crushing machine (Knochenmühle) was purchased from Schriever and Co. in Hamburg.^[28]

The final extermination phase [edit]

In April 1944, the Germans renewed deportations to Chełmno to facilitate the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto, where 70,000 Jews still remained. The SS Special Detachment "Bothmann" returned to the forest camp and supervised the renewed killing operations. A further 25,000 Łódź Jews were murdered.^[26] This time, the victims spent one night in the village church at Chełmno where they also left their bundles. They were driven to the forest, where the camp authorities constructed two reception huts, and two new open-air cremation pits. The SS and police guarded the victims as they undressed and gave up valuables before entering gas-vans. In this final phase of the camp operation, all victims's bodies were burned right after death.^[29] The Jews were also being killed by shooting. From mid-July 1944, the SS and police began deporting the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In September 1944, a new Commando 1005 of Jewish prisoners from outside the Wartheland District was brought in to exhume and cremate any remaining corpses and to remove any left-over evidence of mass murder operations. A month later, the SS and police executed about half of the 80-man detachment after this work was done. The gas-chamber vans were sent back to Berlin. The Germans abandoned the Chełmno killing center on January 18, 1945, as the Soviet army approached (which arrived at the camp two days later).^[1] It is estimated that the SS killed at least 152,000 people at Chełmno between December 1941 and March 1943, and in June/July 1944.^[1] Note: a 1946–47 report by the Central Commision for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland placed the number closer to 340,000, based on statistical approach, because the camp authorities destroyed railway records as well.^[2]

Testimonies [edit]

Adolf Eichmann on trial in 1961

Adolf Eichmann testified about the camp during his 1961 war-crimes trial in Jerusalem. He visited it once in late 1942. Simon Srebnik from the burial Sonderkommando testified in both the Eichmann and Chelmno Guard Trials. Given a nickname "Spinnefix", Srebnik would only be recognised by the Chelmno Guards by this name.

A gas-van driver named Walter Burmeister (not be confused with the camps SS-Unterscharfuehrer Walter Burmeister) testified in Bonn in 1967:^[30]

As soon as the ramp had been erected in the castle, people started arriving in Kulmhof from Litzmannstadt (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 metres [13-16 ft] long, 2.2 metres [7.2 ft] wide and 2 metres [6.5 ft] 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 buried 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.

— Walter Burmeister, The Good Old Days ^[31]

Survivors [edit]

The exact number of survivors of Chełmno, and their identities, is the subject of some ambiguity. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, seven Jews from the burial Sonderkommando have escaped from the Waldlager. Five of them, during the winter of 1942 including Mordechaï Podchlebnik, Milnak Meyer, Abraham Tauber, Abram Roj, and Szlamek Bajler (whose identity has been later established as Yakov (or Jacob) Grojanowski); while Mordechaï Zurawski and Simon Srebnik escaped later.^[1] Some sources state that there were only two survivors: Simon Srebnik and Mordechaï Podchlebnik.^[32][33] Podchlebnik is sometimes noted by another version of his first name, Michał (or Michael).^[33] On June 9, 1945, Podchlebnik gave a testimony in a Polish court. Twenty days later at age fifteen, Srebnik also testified. Srebnik would go on to testify in both the Eichmann Trial in 1961 and the Chelmno Guard Trials of 1962/3. Both Srebnik and Podchlebnik are interviewed in Claude Lanzmann's controversial quasi-documentary Shoah.^[34] Szlamek Bajler (his real name) known also as Yakov (or Jacob) Grojanowski documented the workings of the camp in his Grojanowski Report. However, Grojanowski was later murdered in the gas chamber at Bełżec extermination camp.

Other sources mention three survivors,^[4] Srebnik, Podchlebnik, and the third being Mordechaï Zurawski.^[35] Zurawski, along with Srebnik and Podchlebnik, was a witness at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, recounting his experience at the camp.^[35][36] Dr. Sara Roy of Harvard University has written that her father, Abraham, was one of two survivors of Chełmno, but doesn't mention his surname.^[37]

See also [edit]

• List of Nazi-German concentration camps
• Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
• Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
• One of Franz Kafka's sisters, Valerie "Valli" (de) (born September 25, 1890), was among those sent from the Łódź ghetto to Chełmno, where she was murdered in the autumn of 1942.

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Montague, Patrick (2012). Chelmno and the Holocaust: A History of Hitler's First Death Camp. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-807-83527-2. 

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chełmno extermination camp

• Resources about Chełmno on the Yad Vashem website
• Holocaust Encyclopedia. "Chełmno" (permission granted to be reused, in whole or in part, on Wikipedia; OTRS ticket no. 2007071910012533 confirmed). © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 5 August 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007. "Text from USHMM has been released under the GFDL. The Museum can offer no guarantee that the information is correct in each circumstance." 

Coordinates: 52°09′14″N 18°43′23″E / 52.154011°N 18.722978°E / 52.154011; 18.722978

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