Chelmno's Death Camps

Isaacs 1
Madeline Isaacs
Davis
English 5th hour
24 January 2011
Chelmno
This death camp had a single purpose: to kill every Jew within a few hours of their arrival.
In 1940, thirty-three Jews lived in a village named Chelmno. Nazis came into their village and forced each one to flee. Over a year later, the village became the site of the first death camp, Chelmno. This camp was located in the Kolo County in central Poland. German occupation authorities named it Kulmhof. The entire Jewish populations from Warthegau were to be exterminated by poisonous gases. Warthegau included Wielkopolska and the Lodz Provinces. This location was perfect for a death camp because of its location by the road to Kolo Town, an adjacent forest, and an abandoned
Once the labor camps prisoners weren’t strong enough to complete tasks or if camps got overcrowded, they would be sent to an examination, then to Chelmno, depending on the results. Examiners would check each Jew to see how badly emaciated they were. Some would stuff scraps of fabric into their clothes or rub their cheeks to appear healthy to pass examinations and live. From time to time, Germans would send healthy and strong young men to Chelmno to confuse Jews about Chelmno being a death camp. From time to time, Germans would send healthy and strong young men to Chelmno to confuse Jews about Chelmno being a death
in the winter and 4:00A.M. in the summer. Prisoners might have a sip of coffee before assembling in a role-call formation. The roll-calls tended to last fro a couple hours while Nazis accounted each Jew. In any type of weather, even snow or hail, with or without shoes, several would collapse and die from exhaustion. After roll, they would receive a small amount of bread. Each day, the jews would work for 12 hours stacking bodies in mass graves or burning bodies in the furnace. At 7:00P.M., another roll-call would take place and if the number of Jews didn’t match with the morning’s roll-call, the wait would last even longer.
55,000 people were deported from the Lodz Ghetto to Chelmno. The Gypsies died of hunger and the few survivors were sent to be killed in Chelmno. By the end of summer 1942, all Warthegau ghettos had been exterminated.
As soon as Chelmno was in operation, thousands of Jew communities deported. Deportees were told they were going to Poland to be “resettled” in farms and labor camps. Their only destination was an immediate death at Chelmno. 13,000 Jews had already been gassed at Chelmno by February 28, 1942.
The first victims were allowed to take hand baggage only. The Jews from Kolo had already experienced brutal deportments to other labor camps. They thought the worst thing that could happen is another horrible labor camp. To confuse the victims even more, they had signs