During Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Einsatzgruppen went out into captured territories to execute mass murder. But as this proved too demanding on their soldiers, Nazi authorities decided instead to set up stationary killing centers for soldiers to execute more efficiently.
Auschwitz was one of many camps located on territory seized in Poland and nearby locations like Chelmno and Belzec were established for similar purposes.
Purpose
As the Nazi war machine progressed, death camps were constructed to commit mass killings while keeping these crimes hidden from public view. Like Auschwitz, these camps were established both within Germany and occupied countries across Europe - such as in Belgium or Poland where their crimes could go undetected by law enforcement agencies. SS kept these camps secretive by concealing their operation with false facades or employing Sonderkommando prisoner units forced to remove bodies from gas chambers or crematoriums before burning them in mass graves where cremation wasn't practiced - sometimes this meant digging up and burning corpses instead.
Concentration camps were used to house prisoners with various political opinions and criminal histories; death camps were employed specifically to murder those considered unsuitable for labor - predominantly Jews. Hitler had laid out in his 1942 Wannsee Conference the plan for their use to implement his Final Solution of genocide.
These camps included Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka killing centers as well as Poland's Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. When victims arrived at these extermination camps they would often be misled into thinking they would be sent to German Arbeitslagers (work camps); instead they were marched into stationary gas chambers disguised by SS doctors as showers which contained exhaust from diesel engine tanks that was piped directly into them, creating carbon monoxide poisoning.
At one point, an estimated two million prisoners were held captive in these extermination camps. But that wasn't all: Nazi forces also set up special murder squads within Soviet territories to round up those they considered threats to their rule: high-ranking communists and Jews whom they shot quickly in quickly dug graves or trenches.
After World War II had ended, survivors were left with haunting memories and injuries from these camps. Those responsible were rarely punished while ordinary Germans claimed ignorance about them. Today, their sites remain haunting reminders. Human ashes litter the land surrounding gas chambers and crematoriums while trains transported victims through to be killed off and even families awaited their loved one's deaths there.
Operation
As part of Germany's initial assault against the Soviet Union in 1941, German soldiers known as Einsatzgruppen would enter newly conquered areas and kill civilians in massive massacres. Nazi leaders quickly realized this strategy was too arduous for their troops and started devising more efficient methods of killing large numbers of people simultaneously. By December 1941, the SS had created experimental gas vans. Camp commander Rudolf Hoss received instructions from Heinrich Himmler to construct an extermination centre at Auschwitz-Birkenau in September of that year. Hoss designed and established new killing centers intended to murder up to six thousand people a day using lethal gases. The SS tested Zyklon B, normally used for pest control, at Auschwitz camp. He later built four large gas chambers at Birkenau complex that could accommodate up to one thousand victims each time, becoming operational starting March 1942.
The ultimate aim of the SS was to exterminate all 11 million Jews living in Europe through industrial slaughter and forced labor. On January 15, 1942, at Wannsee Conference SS officials met to coordinate this vast enterprise of destruction; at that meeting SS Chief Reinhard Heydrich detailed what later became known as The Final Solution - using cutting edge 20th Century technologies and engineering practices they would kill as many Jewish people in as short a period as possible using cost efficient engineering practices to maximize killing power with limited resources and human suffering.
Killing centers were kept highly-secretive by SS leaders who went to great lengths to conceal them from prisoners. Sonderkommandos were recruited specifically for this task of covering up any gassing operations; additionally, many grounds of camps were often landscaped or camouflaged to cover up their true purpose and buried bodies were often placed into pits before cremating them to further cover up this massive slaughter of millions.
By 1945 when the Allies liberated Auschwitz, most of its prisoners had already died and its liberators cast strangely embarrassed glances upon "spread bodies, battered huts and those still living". Primo Levi, one survivor who wrote later about this episode in history.
Methods
At a Nazi conference held in January 1942, the SS presented their plan for killing off Europe's Jews known as The Final Solution. Under this scheme, six million European Jews were to be exterminated via shooting or gassing at stationary killing centers located throughout Europe that operated with strict secrecy, processing multiple transports of men, women and children daily.
Killing centers were unlike concentration camps in that they were intended to kill as many people quickly. Their primary feature was permanent gas chambers; at Auschwitz-Birkenau this consisted of large engine-driven tank engines spewing poisonous carbon monoxide into sealed rooms from large tank engines; victims would soon suffocate from this deadly gas before their bodies were dumped in pits and burned to hide the crime spree.
Death camps were also distinguished by a large warehouse where all clothing and personal items belonging to victims were stored, often before they were stripped before gassing with Zyklon B - a potency compound of hydrogen cyanide or prussic acid - through vents in chambers; its release caused those inside to suffocate in 20 minutes, their screams audible through thick walls.
Some prisoners at killing centers were given special duties known as Sonderkommandos to erase all evidence of gassing operations, remove and burn corpses from killing centers or mass graves, bury personal items of those killed as well as dig, burry and burn them.
At certain killing centers, a doctor working out of camp performed inhumane medical experiments on captives. One such physician was Josef Mengele - known as "the Angel of Death" due to his horrific practices - such as injecting serum into dozens of children's eyes or testing twins to see whether they would die at once or separately.
Finality
As Germany's military fortunes faltered, Nazi leaders intensified their plans to eliminate Jews and others seen as threats to German national unity. At the infamous Wannsee Conference held in January 1942, they proposed what became known as "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question", mandating their total extermination across Europe using concentration camps as means.
Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor and Lublin (commonly referred to as Majdanek) became extermination camps with one main aim in mind - killing Jews and other prisoners using poison gas and various other means. Chelmno and Auschwitz used mobile gas vans whose carbon-monoxide exhaust would asphyxiate passengers while later permanent gas chambers were constructed - both killing centers choosing victims through medical records examination, such as mentally or physically ill persons being disabled or otherwise unfit for work - which they found by studying medical records or selecting victims according to mental or physical illness or disability or unfit for work status.
Auschwitz concentration camp and extermination center was known by its SS Commander Rudolf Hoss as the 'death factory" where five hundred sick and disabled inmates were gassed using Zyklon B, a lethal pesticide, beginning June-July 1941. By September four large gas chambers, which could collectively kill six thousand deaths each day were constructed; their purposeful placement behind showers gave victims the impression they were receiving disinfection services prior to being deported to concentration camps.
At each of the six death centres, Sonderkommandos were responsible for disposing of bodies from gas chambers so they would never return to victims' families. Their grounds were landscaped or camouflaged to obscure their true purpose while bodies were cremated using special ovens that could accommodate up to 10,000 bodies per day.
At several of the killing centers, prisoners staged resistance and uprisings against their SS captors. At Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1944, Sonderkommandos who worked in crematoria rebelled against their harsh treatment and destroyed Crematoria IV before their rebellion was quickly suppressed and all its members killed.
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