Editing Extermination camp (section)

{{Short description|Nazi death camps established to systematically murder}}
{{for|other Nazi internment facilities|Types of Nazi camps|Nazi concentration camps}}
{{Redirect-multi|2|Death factory|Deathcamp|other uses|Death Factory (disambiguation)|the 2015 American rap song|Deathcamp (song)}}
{{Pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2017}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name          = Nazi extermination camps
| image         =Sobibor extermination camp view, summer 1943 (retouched).jpg
| image_size    = 
| caption       = View of [[Sobibor extermination camp]], 1943
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|200px]]<br />[[The Holocaust]] map: The six Nazi extermination camps set up by the [[SS]] in  [[occupied Poland]], are marked with white skulls in black squares. 
| AKA           =
| location      = [[German-occupied Europe]] (chiefly [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|occupied Poland]])
| date          = [[World War II]]
| incident_type = Extermination
| perpetrators  = The [[SS]]
| participants  = <!-- Participants -->
| organizations = ''[[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]''
| camp          = [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]]
| ghetto        = <!-- Ghetto        -->
| victims       = <!-- Victims       -->
| survivors     = <!-- Survivors     -->
| witnesses     = <!-- Witnesses     -->
| documentation = <!-- Documentation -->
| memorials     = <!-- Memorials     -->
| notes         = <!-- Notes         -->
}}

[[Nazi Germany]] used six '''extermination camps''' ({{langx|de|Vernichtungslager}}), also called '''death camps''' ({{lang|de|Todeslager}}), or '''killing centers''' ({{lang|de|Tötungszentren}}), in Central Europe, primarily in [[occupied Poland]], during [[World War II]] to [[Genocide|systematically murder]] over [[Holocaust victims|2.7 million people]]{{snd}}mostly [[Jews]]{{snd}}in [[the Holocaust]].<ref>{{cite web |title=World War II and the Holocaust, 1939–1945 |url=https://www.ushmm.org/learn/holocaust/path-to-nazi-genocide/chapter-4/world-war-ii-and-the-holocaust-1939-1945 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=7 June 2020 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution/death-camps.html#narrative_info|title=The Death Camps |publisher=Yad Vashem |language=en|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/killing-centers-an-overview |title=Killing Centers: An Overview |encyclopedia= Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by [[Gas chamber#Germany|gassing]], either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of [[gas van]]s.<ref name=YV-H /> The six extermination camps were [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]] and [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz-Birkenau]]. [[Extermination through labour]] was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gruner |first=Wolf |date=April 2004 |chapter=Jewish Forced Labor as a Basic Element of Nazi Persecution: Germany, Austria, and the Occupied Polish Territories (1938–1943) |title=Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe |url=https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20060315-forced-slave-labor-symposium.pdf |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |pages=43–44}} Symposium.</ref><ref name="Gellately2001">{{cite book |first1=Robert|last1=Gellately |first2=Nathan|last2=Stoltzfus |title=Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany |year=2001 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-691-08684-2 |page=216 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1toqgWg8ROUC&q=forced+labor }}</ref><ref name=YV-H>{{cite web |title=The Implementation of the Final Solution: The Death Camps |work=The Holocaust |publisher=Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution/death-camps.html#narrative_info |access-date=20 April 2020}}</ref> Millions were also murdered in [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]], in the [[Aktion T4]], or directly on site.{{sfn|Orth|2009a|p=194}} Additionally, camps operated by Nazi allies have also been described as extermination or death camps, most notably the [[Jasenovac concentration camp]] in the [[Independent State of Croatia]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schäuble |first=Michaela |date=2011 |title=How History Takes Place: Sacralized Landscapes in the Croatian-Bosnian Border Region |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/histmemo.23.1.23 |journal=[[History & Memory]] |volume=23 |issue=1 |page=57 |doi=10.2979/histmemo.23.1.23 |access-date=23 May 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Greif |first=Gideon |author-link=Gideon Greif |date=11 August 2022 |title=Jasenovac, the Camp and its Historical and Moral Meaning |url=https://fondacijasnd.rs/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2-Gideon-Grajf-eng.pdf |journal=Napredak |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=11-40 |doi=10.5937/napredak3-39588 |access-date=23 May 2025}}</ref>

The National Socialists made no secret of the existence of concentration camps as early as 1933, as they served as a deterrent to resistance. The extermination camps, on the other hand, were kept strictly secret. To disguise the mass murder, even in internal correspondence, they only referred to it as "special treatment," "cleansing," "resettlement," or "evacuation." The SS referred to the extermination camps as concentration camps. Their internal organizational structures were also largely identical. The term "extermination camp" was only used later in historical scholarship and in court cases and serves to further categorize the camps.

The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities, to which the victims were [[Holocaust trains|taken by train]], was the result of earlier [[Nazi human experimentation|Nazi experimentation]] with chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive [[Aktion T4]] [[euthanasia]] programme against hospital patients with [[Mental disorder|mental]] and [[Physical disability|physical disabilities]].<ref name="Gassing">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005220 |title=Gassing Operations |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC |date=20 June 2014 |access-date=25 January 2015 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref> The technology was adapted, expanded, and applied in wartime to unsuspecting victims of many ethnic and national groups; the Jews were the primary target, accounting for over 90 percent of extermination camp victims.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ten Worst Nazi Concentration Camps |first=Shahan |last=Russell |url=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/ten-worst-nazi-concentration-camps.html |work=WarHistoryOnline.com |date=12 October 2015 |access-date=20 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190722180327/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/ten-worst-nazi-concentration-camps.html |archive-date=22 July 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The genocide of the Jews of Europe was Nazi Germany's "[[Final Solution]] to the [[Jewish question]]".<ref>{{cite book|last=Furet|first=François|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=02PpAAAACAAJ|title=Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews|publisher=[[Schocken Books]]|location=New York|date=1989|page=182|isbn=978-0805209082}}</ref><ref name=YV-H /><ref name="DB-A">{{cite web |first=Doris |last=Bergen |title=Nazi Ideology and the Camp System |url=https://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html |work=Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State |publisher=Community Television of Southern California |year=2004–2005 }}</ref>