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Annette Jones

Mr. Neuburger

English 102

Holocaust
Extermination Methods

Extermination camps, or death camps, were built by the Nazi’s from 1939-1945 and were

utilized for the extermination of Jews. Most believe the total number of Jews that died from the

Holocaust was close to six million, and these death camps played a vital role in the number of

victims that perished. The six death camps were Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor,

Auschwitz and Majdanek.

Chelmno was the first extermination camp in operation. The Germans began working on

this extermination camp two months before the Wannsee Conference was held. The dates this

camp operated from was December 1941-March 1943 and June and July of 1944. This death

camp was like all the others, designed for killing of all who arrived there. Only a select few were

kept alive and worked. Chelmno’s main method of killing was the use of gassing trucks. The

Jews were stripped of their clothes and told that a large passage hallway was the way to the bath-

house. When the room was filled up with Jews, the doors would lock, engines would start, and

exhaust fumes (carbon monoxide) would fill the room, suffocating them do death. Afterwards,

corpses were gathered and buried and later on burned to clear some room. The other method they

used were mass shootings, where they would basically make the Jews dig a huge hole/grave, and

stand around it while the Germans shot them, causing them to fall into the ground. The estimated

total number of Jews who perished in Chelmno was 152,000.

The second death camp was Belzec, which operated from May 1942-August 1943. Over
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600,000 Jews fell victim to the gas chambers at this camp. The Germans divided Belzec into a

reception area and a separate area, where the mass murder of Jews was hidden from the view of

Jews waiting in the reception area. These Jews were killed in a similar way and the ones in

Chelmno. They would arrive into rooms labeled as “showers”. Then carbon monoxide would fill

the room, killing all those inside.

Sobibor was the next camp to operate, from May 1942-October 1943. With the use of gas

chambers, 250,000 died. Again, they were killed in a similar way. The gas chambers had two

doors, one where the victims walked in, and the other where victims were dragged out. Some

Jewish workers were even in charge of pulling the bodies out of the chambers, throwing them

into carts, and dumping them into pits. Then eventually, the bodies were burned with the help of

gasoline.

Treblinka was the last camp to use exhaust fumes. This camp operated from July 1942-

November 1943. In August 1943, an estimated 900,000 Jews died. Some say Treblinka wasn’t so

much a camp and more like a factory of death. An estimated ninety-nine percent of arrivals to the

camp were sent straight to the gas chamber, and the others were forced to work slave labor.

When the camp operations ended in October 1943, Nazi’s removed all evidence that the camp

existed by burning everything to the ground. Today there is little physical evidence that it ever

existed.

Auschwitz and Majdanek were the last two camps, and both used the chemical Zyklon B

as their method of murder. Auschwitz was the largest killing center created, (from March 1942-

November 1944) where an estimated one-two million Jews were killed (gassed to death). This

camp even constructed large gassing facilities of mass destruction and crematoria’s. In

September 1941, after an experimental gassing of 850 malnourished and ill prisoners, mass
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murder was a daily routine. Using exhaust fumes were a thing of the past, and now the gas

chambers were being filled with a chemical called Zyklon B. Zyklon B is basically hydrogen

cyanide. To explain it simply, it blocks oxygen to the cells, and some chemists say that yes, it

could be very painful. Most reports claim that it took ten-twenty minutes to kill a person, or even

less if that person was standing close to a vent. Some victims would even foam at the mouth or

bleed from their ears. In any case, it became a popular method for killing, along with starvation,

disease, shooting and burning.

Majdanek was the last concentration camp, and was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet

Union. It operated until October 1942, and an estimated 60,000-80,000 Jews perished by either

being gassed or shot. The unusual thing about this camp is that it was located near a major city,

not hidden away in some rural area. Also, since the Nazi’s had little time to destroy this camp

before liberation, it is known as the best preserved concentration camp of the Holocaust. With

similar killing methods as Auschwitz, there really is no need to go into detail. In August 1944,

the Soviets turned the camp into a museum to investigate and document the crimes committed at

Majdanek. This was also one of the first attempts to document the Nazi crimes.

In conclusion it’s safe to say that the Holocaust goes down in history and one of the most

devastating events to happen. Many of the Jews that did survive suffered from physical, mental

and emotional issues following what I’m sure was a truly horrific event. Many survivors feared

going home or didn’t have a place to call home. Needless to say, it’s a shame that the world

didn’t get light of this situation till way after it was done and over with. War and killing is

definitely a part of this world we come to know and love, to say that we should live in a world of

peace is almost too asinine a thought. I hope nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again. Too

many innocent lives fell victim to what essentially was a racist/prejudice issue.
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