What was a death camp?

Answer 1

A death camp (or extermination camp) was a Nazi camp intended and designed for the sole purpose of killing the inmates, usually with special apparatus, such as gas chamber, specially designed for mass murder.

The first death to become operational was Chelmno, where routine mass gassings of Jews started on 8 December 1941.

Chelmno was followed by:

• Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
• Belzec
• Treblinka II
• Sobibor
• Majdanek (one section of the camp)

Note that in some camps the inmates were worked to death on grossly insufficient food. This applies in particular to:

• Auschwitz I and III
• Majdanek (the other section)

These camps are often also called death camps.

The death toll at all the major "ordinary" concentration camps was high. At least two stand out:

• Stutthof (near Danzig, Poland). Like most camps, this was a large complex of camps. The estimated death toll is about 65,000.
• Bergen-Belsen (near Hanover, Germany). In the later stages of the war this was used as a dumping-ground for inmates moved out of Auschwitz and other camps in the east. It became hopelessy overcrowded and insanitary. Estimated death toll: about 50,000 of whom about 75% perished in the typhus epidemic that gripped the camp in early 1945.

These camps are sometimes also referred to as death camps because of the high death toll.

Answer 2

A death camp, or extermination camp is one that was specifically designed for murdering. The six death camps were:

• Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Belzec
• Sobibor
• Treblinka
• Majdanek
• Chelmno

A concentration camp was a very harsh prison camp, outside the ordinary prison and justice system and was not subject to standard prison regulations. People were sent there without trial. In Nazi Germany, from June 1933 on, camp guards on duty were not subject to the law, only to internal SS discipline.

Answer 3

A death camp is where Hitler sent Jews and other groups of people that he didn't like to be killed by being shot, put in gas chambers, or dying of disease.