Chełmno nad Nerem

Chełmno nad Nerem was a World War II-era Nazi extermination camp located near the Polish city of the same name. It was at Chełmno that the Nazis first used toxic gas as a means of mass extermination of Jews, Poles, Roma, Soviets, and others. The site operated over two periods between 1941 and 1945. Many of the victims killed at Chełmno died in the back of trucks rigged so that exhaust fumes filled the compartments where they were held as they drove through the town. Others were gassed in locations near the city or simply shot in the head. The number of people who died at Chełmno is estimated at about two hundred thousand.

Background

Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, commonly known as the Nazi party. It was a radical political party that capitalized on poor economic conditions in Germany during the Great Depression of the 1930s to rise to power. Hitler wanted to create a financially and militarily powerful empire of racially pure Germans he called Aryans. He studied how other powerful empires were formed and decided to emulate them.

From his study of history, Hitler determined that many powerful countries gained dominance by taking over land and overpowering the indigenous occupants. Those who survived the occupation were often relocated and/or enslaved for the benefit of the occupiers. When Hitler initially began invading European countries, starting with Poland in 1939, he intended to deport all those he considered inferior to pure Germans. However, he faced resistance from countries such as Britain and Russia. They blocked access to the areas he wanted to send people to, thwarting his deportation plans. Instead, Hitler decided to exterminate the people he wanted removed from his planned empire.

Hitler and many in the Nazi party saw the Jews as an inferior race that posed a threat to Aryan dominance. They believed that the Jews had control of world finances and media, and that they would use this to the detriment of the Germanic races. As a result, the Nazis aimed to permanently rid the areas they controlled of any Jewish influences. They called this effort the Final Solution. They also included additional people they considered inferior or a threat, such as Poles, Russians, Roma, the disabled and ill, and gay people. An estimated six million Jews and more than seventeen million people overall were killed during the Nazi regime, many in extermination camps such as Chełmno.

Overview

The Chełmno extermination camp was located at Chełmno nad Nerem, a town on the Ner River in Poland. The Germans called the town Kulmhof. It was the first mass extermination camp used by the Nazis during World War II.

Unlike later camps where people were held in large barracks, Chełmno used two existing structures to hold internees for very short periods before they were killed. Between December 7, 1941, and April 11, 1943, people were held in a church. The second use of Chełmno occurred between mid-1944 and January 1945. During this time, internees were held in a castle before their deaths. The methods used to murder prisoners were devised by local rather than central German authorities.

First Period

The first victims to die at Chełmno were mostly residents of nearby Jewish ghettos. They included Jews forcibly relocated from Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Those killed in this first wave also included Roma, who are often derogatively referred to as gypsies.

Victims were rounded up and taken to the church under the ruse that they were being transported to a work camp. Many spent the night in the church. The captives were told they were going to be disinfected and given a medical exam and ordered to get undressed. They were forced into large trucks that held dozens of people.

Initially, the trucks were rigged with cylinders that fed carbon monoxide into the sealed chambers of the trucks. Later exhaust from the trucks was directed into the compartments to poison the prisoners. The people died during the fifteen-minute ride to the woods where they were buried in shallow mass graves. However, a few driving delays resulted in local townspeople hearing the screams and struggles of people dying in the back of the trucks, so the people running the camp changed their tactics. The Nazis gassed the prisoners before driving them to the woods for burial.

Transport stopped and the camp was closed in the summer of 1942 due to the stench of decaying bodies and concern about the spread of disease. The bodies were exhumed and burned. In early 1943, German authorities decided to close the camp. The camp commander blew up the crematorium before abandoning the site.

Second Period

From the spring and summer of 1944 to January 1945, victims were held at the ruins of a castle in Chełmno. Most of those killed during this period were Jews. However, their deaths came not in the mobile killing chambers but in huts built in the Rzuchowski Forest. In less than a month between June and July 1944, nearly 7,200 people who lived in the town of Lodz were transported to Chełmno and murdered. The last few dozen people to die at Chełmno lost their lives between January 17 and 18, 1945. They were held in a granary before the Nazi guards known as the Schutzstaffel, or SS, took them out in groups of five and shot them in the head. Knowing what was to befall them, some of the Jews staged a revolt and killed two of the Nazis. The Nazis then set the building on fire with the remaining Jews inside.

Several inquiries were conducted into the events at Chełmno after the war. These indicated the number of executions there ranged between 152,000 and 350,000. Most historians agree that about 200,000 people died there during its two periods of use.

Significance

Although Chełmno was the first Nazi extermination camp and played a role in the development of the Nazis’ Final Solution, it is largely forgotten. The Nazis used the Chełmno site to demonstrate the efficiency of toxic gas as a method of killing large numbers of people. This knowledge was later implemented in murdering prisoners in larger death camps.

Bibliography

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