Editing Extermination camp (section)

== History ==
{{main|The Final Solution|Nazi ghettos|Holocaust train}}
In the early years of World War II, the Jews were primarily sent to forced labour camps and ghettoised, but [[Wannsee Conference|from 1942 onward]] they were deported to the extermination camps under the guise of "resettlement". For political and logistical reasons, the most infamous [[Nazi German]] killing factories were built in [[occupied Poland]], where most of the intended victims lived; Poland had the greatest [[Polish Jews|Jewish population]] in [[German-occupied Europe|Nazi-controlled Europe]].<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/evacpol.html "The evacuation of Jews to Poland"]. ''Jewish Virtual Library''. Retrieved 28 July 2009.</ref> On top of that, the new death camps outside of Germany's prewar borders could be kept secret from the German civil populace.<ref>{{cite book|author-link = Ellen Land-Weber|first = Ellen|last = Land-Weber|chapter-url = http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html|chapter = Conditions for Polish Jews During WWII|title = To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue|date = 26 October 2004|access-date = 9 March 2009|archive-date = 2 July 2010|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100702090015/http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html|url-status = dead}}</ref>

=== Pure extermination camps ===
[[File:Children headed for deportation.JPG|thumb|left|Jewish children during deportation to the [[Chełmno extermination camp]]]]
During the initial phase of the [[Final Solution]], [[Nazi gas van|gas van]]s producing poisonous [[Exhaust gas|exhaust fumes]] were developed in the occupied [[Soviet Union]] (USSR) and at the [[Chełmno extermination camp]] in occupied [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]], before being used elsewhere. The killing method was based on experience gained by the [[SS]] during the secretive {{lang|de|[[Aktion T4]]}} programme of involuntary [[euthanasia]]. There were two types of death chambers operating during the Holocaust.<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf" />

Unlike at Auschwitz, where cyanide-based [[Zyklon B]] was used to exterminate trainloads of prisoners under the guise of "relocation", the camps at [[Treblinka]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Bełżec]], and [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], built during [[Operation Reinhard]] (October 1941{{snd}}November 1943), used lethal exhaust fumes produced by large [[internal combustion engine]]s. The three killing centres of {{lang|de|Einsatz Reinhard}} were constructed predominantly for the extermination of [[Polish Jews|Poland's Jews]] trapped in [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|the Nazi ghettos]].<ref name="ushmm.org">{{cite web|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos|title=Ghettos|website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org}}</ref> At first, the victims' bodies were buried with the use of [[crawler excavator]]s, but they were later exhumed and incinerated in open-air pyres to hide the evidence of genocide in what became known as {{lang|de|italic=no|[[Sonderaktion 1005]]}}.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Desbois |first1=Patrick |title=The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0-2305-9456-2 |page=170 |language=en |chapter=Operation 1005}}</ref>{{sfn|Arad|1999|pages=152–153}}

The six camps considered to be purely for extermination were [[Chełmno extermination camp]], [[Bełżec extermination camp]], [[Sobibor extermination camp]], [[Treblinka extermination camp]], [[Majdanek extermination camp]] and [[Auschwitz extermination camp]] (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau).

Whereas the Auschwitz II (Auschwitz–Birkenau) and Majdanek camps were parts of a labor camp complex, the Chełmno and Operation Reinhard death camps (that is, Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka) were built exclusively for the rapid extermination of entire communities of people (primarily Jews) within hours of their arrival. All were constructed near [[branch line]]s that linked to the Polish railway system, with staff members transferring between locations. These camps had almost identical design: they were several hundred metres in length and width, and were equipped with only minimal staff housing and support installations not meant for the victims crammed into the [[Holocaust train|railway transports]].{{sfn|Arad|1999|p=37}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/aktion-reinhard/prolog-arad.html |title=Aktion Reinhard: Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka|access-date=3 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513174430/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/aktion-reinhard/prolog-arad.html|archive-date=13 May 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref>
 
The Nazis deceived the victims upon their arrival, telling them that they were at a temporary transit stop, and would soon continue to German {{lang|de|Arbeitslager}} (work camps) farther to the east.<ref name="explained.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-camps/daily-life/journeys#.V6SvaDW19kQ |title=Deportation and transportation |publisher=London Jewish Cultural Centre |work=The Holocaust Explained |year=2011 |access-date=5 August 2016 |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150113195832/http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-camps/daily-life/journeys#.V6SvaDW19kQ |archive-date=13 January 2015 }}</ref> Selected able-bodied prisoners delivered to the death camps were not immediately killed, but instead were pressed into labor units called {{lang|de|[[Sonderkommando]]s}} to help with the extermination process by removing corpses from the gas chambers and burning them.

=== Concentration and extermination camps ===
[[File:Auschwitz Resistance 282 cropped.JPG|thumb|March to the gas chambers, one of the [[Sonderkommando photographs]] taken secretly at [[Auschwitz II]] in August 1944|right]]

At the camps of Operation Reinhard, including [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], trainloads of prisoners were murdered immediately after arrival in [[gas chamber]]s designed exclusively for that purpose.<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf" /> The mass killing facilities were developed at about the same time inside the [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz II-Birkenau]] subcamp of a [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labour complex]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grossman |first=Vasily |author-link=Vasily Grossman |year=1946 |title=The Treblinka Hell |trans-title=Треблинский ад |url=http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |at=[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47875651/TheHellOfTreblinka.html (online version)] |location=Moscow |access-date=5 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006123821/http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |archive-date=6 October 2014 |url-status=dead }} Originally published as [http://lib.ru/PROZA/GROSSMAN/trebl.txt ''Повести, рассказы, очерки''] [Stories, Journalism, and Essays], Moscow: [[Voenizdat]], 1958.</ref> and at the [[Majdanek concentration camp]].<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf"/> In most other camps prisoners were selected for slave labor first; they were kept alive on starvation rations and made available to work as required. Auschwitz, Majdanek, and [[Jasenovac concentration camp|Jasenovac]] were retrofitted with Zyklon B gas chambers and crematoria buildings as the time went on, remaining operational until war's end in 1945.<ref name="lifshitz">M. Lifshitz, ''Zionism'' [משה ליפשיץ, "ציונות"], p. 304. Compare with H. Abraham, "History of Israel and the nations in the era of Holocaust and uprising" [חדד אברהם, "תולדות ישראל והעמים בתקופת השואה והתקומה"]</ref>