(in German,
vernichtungslager), Nazi camps located in occupied
Poland whose sole purpose was to murder the Jews brought there. Altogether, about 3.5 million Jews were killed in extermination camps as part of the "final solution."
The Nazis began systematically mass murdering Jews when they invaded the soviet union in June 1941. At first, hundreds of thousands of Jews were shot to death by einsatzgruppen and other units. However, this method quickly proved cumbersome, and the Nazis began searching for other murder methods. They soon began experimenting with poison gas at auschwitz and other camps. After these experiments showed gas to be a successful technique, Nazi leaders ordered the establishment of extermination camps where gas would be used for the murder of Jews.
The extermination camps were constructed in the region of Poland occupied by germany in 1939. They included the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) section of Auschwitz, chelmno, belzec, sobibor, and treblinka. Some experts also include majdanek, with its 360,000 victims as there was a time when the Jews who arrived there were subjected to selections, as at Auschwitz, and most sent to their deaths (see also selektion).
Chelmno was the first extermination camp to be established. Located near lodz, it was put into operation on December 8, 1941, and disbanded in the summer of 1944. Victims were killed by gas vans; about 320,000 people were murdered there.
Auschwitz was both a concentration camp and an extermination camp. Its extermination section in Birkenau was instituted in March 1942, and finally closed in November 1944. During its two and a half years of operation, about one million Jews were murdered in the camp's gas chambers, which used zyklon b gas. In addition, tens of thousands of gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war were also murdered there.
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were all set up in 1942 as a result of aktion reinhard. Belzec was in operation from March to December 1942, during which time 600,000 Jews were murdered there; Sobibor operated from April 1942 to October 1943, with 250,000 victims; and Treblinka operated from July 1942 to August 1943, encompassing 870,000 murders. Those annihilated at these camps were suffocated to death by carbon monoxide gas.
