Crimes & persecution

Chełmno extermination camp

8 Dec 1941 – 18 Jan 1945 · Chełmno nad Nerem

Mass gassings began on 8 December 1941 at Chełmno (Kulmhof), the first of Nazi Germany's extermination camps, near Chełmno nad Nerem in the annexed Reichsgau Wartheland, about 50 km north of Łódź. Victims were killed with exhaust fumes in gas vans. The camp operated from December 1941 to April 1943 and again from June 1944 to January 1945; before Soviet forces arrived the Germans dismantled the manor house and tried to destroy evidence. The article gives estimates of the dead ranging from at least 152,000 to as many as 340,000, and only a handful of people, among them Simon Srebnik, survived. The end date is approximate (January 1945).