Editing Final Solution (section)

==Phase two: deportations to extermination camps==
{{see also|General Government|Extermination camp}}
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|thumb|257px|Nazi extermination camps marked with black and white skulls. [[General Government]] territory: centre, ''[[Distrikt Galizien]]'': lower–right. Death camp at [[Auschwitz]]: lower–left (in ''[[Provinz Oberschlesien]]''), [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|Nazi-Soviet line]] in red]]
When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the area of the [[General Government]] was enlarged by the inclusion of regions that had been annexed by the Soviet Union since the 1939 invasion.<ref name="eber">{{cite book |author1=Piotr Eberhardt |author2=Jan Owsinski |title=Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jLfX1q3kJzgC&q=%22first+part+of+World+War+II%22 |pages=216– |isbn=978-0765606655}}</ref> The murders of Jews from the [[Łódź Ghetto]] in the ''[[Warthegau]]'' district began in early December 1941 with the use of [[gas vans]] (approved by Heydrich) at the [[Kulmhof extermination camp]]. Victims were misled under the deceptive guise of "[[World War II evacuation and expulsion|Resettlement]] in the East", organised by SS Commissioners,<ref name="Gutman-2">{{cite book |author-link=Israel Gutman |first=Israel |last=Gutman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4P_kP4yKqy8C&q=Himmler+resettlement |title=Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |page=119 |isbn=0395901308|year=1994 }}</ref> which was also tried and tested at Chełmno. By the time the European-wide Final Solution was formulated two months later, Heydrich's [[Reich Security Main Office|RSHA]] had already confirmed the effectiveness of industrial murder by exhaust fumes, and the strength of deception.<ref name="vans">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/vans.html |title=The Development of the Gas-Van in the Murdering of the Jews |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |work=The Final Solution |date=2015 |access-date=28 January 2016 |first=Mathias |last=Beer |id=Translated from the German |at="Die Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden", Miszelle. Vierteljahrshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte, 37 (3), pp. 403–17.}}</ref>

Construction work on the first killing centre at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in occupied Poland began in October 1941, three months before the Wannsee Conference. The new facility was operational by March the following year.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{cite web |title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |trans-title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum-Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu |author=National Bełżec Museum |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=24 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015}}</ref> By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] operational by May 1942, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] operational in July.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> From July 1942, the mass murder of Polish and foreign Jews took place at [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] as part of [[Operation Reinhard]], the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi [[extermination camp]] apart from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].<ref name="Berenbaum">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Treblinka |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2016 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |location=Chicago }}</ref> By the time the mass killings of Operation Reinhard ended in 1943, roughly two million Jews in German-occupied Poland had been murdered.<ref name =Reinhard/> The total number of people murdered in 1942 in [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka]] was 1,274,166 by [[Höfle Telegram|Germany's own estimation]], not counting [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] nor ''[[Chełmno extermination camp|Kulmhof]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |author1=Walter Laqueur |author2=Judith Tydor Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0300138113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&q=Chelmno+graveyard |page=178 |author1-link=Walter Laqueur }}</ref> Their bodies were buried in mass graves initially.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}} Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=7 January 2012 |encyclopedia=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already being used at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''[[Aktion Reinhard]]'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref>

The ''Holocaust by bullets'' (as opposed to the ''Holocaust by gas'')<ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309133810/http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2010 |author=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=The Holocaust by bullets |publisher=NGC Europe Limited |year=2013 |work=Excerpt from episode "Apocalypse: The Second World War"}}</ref> went on in the territory of occupied Poland in conjunction with the [[ghetto uprising]]s, irrespective of death camps' quota. In two weeks of July 1942, the [[Słonim Ghetto#The revolt|Słonim Ghetto revolt]], crushed with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'', cost the lives of 8,000–13,000 Jews.<ref>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=198, 238, 347}}. See also {{cite web |author=Lawrence Bush |date=28 June 2010 |title=June 29: The Slonim Massacres |website=Jewish Currents |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/june-29-the-slonim-massacres/ |access-date=1 May 2017 }}</ref> The second largest mass shooting (to that particular date) took place in late October 1942 when the insurgency was suppressed in the [[Pińsk Ghetto]]; over 26,000 men, women and children were shot with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]] before the ghetto's closure.<ref name="stats">{{cite book |editor1=Ray Brandon |editor2=Wendy Lower |editor-link=Wendy Lower |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hyYGOyX1IQUC&dq=Pinsk+massacre+in+the+RKU&pg=PA290|first=Karel C. |last=Berkhoff |title=The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization |date=28 May 2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |page=290 |isbn=978-0-253-00159-7 }} Also in: {{cite web |author1=Barbara N. Łopieńska |author2-link=Ryszard Kapuściński |author2=Ryszard Kapuściński |work=Interview |date=2003 |url=http://kapuscinski.info/czlowiek-z-bagna.html |title=Człowiek z bagna |trans-title=A man from the marshes |publisher=[[Przekrój]] nr 28/3029. Reprint: Ryszard Kapuściński.info }} Further info: {{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |title=Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland |author=Virtual Shtetl |publisher=[[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |archive-date=8 February 2016 |author-link=Virtual Shtetl }} {{cite web |url=http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |title=Getta Żydowskie |author=Gedeon }} {{cite web |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm |title=Ghetto List |author=Michael Peters |publisher=Deathcamps.org }}</ref> During the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] (the largest single revolt by Jews during World War&nbsp;II), 13,000 Jews were killed in action before May 1943.<ref name="stroop">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nowarsaw.html |title=Stroop Report |author=SS [[Gruppenführer]] Jürgen Stroop |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |date=May 1943}}</ref> Numerous other uprisings were quelled without impacting the pre-planned Nazi deportations actions.<ref name="ushmm4">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005407 |title=Resistance in Ghettos |author=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |work=Jewish Uprisings in Ghettos and Camps, 1941–1944 |date=2013 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}} Notable examples include the [[Łuck Ghetto#Jewish uprising and the ghetto liquidation|Łuck Ghetto uprising]] quelled on 12 December 1942 with the help of the [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police]], see: [[Yad Vashem]], {{YouTube |id=1k7v0VPOKnw |title=Łuck, December 1942}}; testimony of {{cite web |url=http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |archive-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722232607/http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |url-status=dead |title=The forgotten December |author=Shmuel Shilo|author-link=Shmuel Shilo }} The [[Łachwa Ghetto#Uprising and massacre|Łachwa Ghetto uprising]] was suppressed on 3 September 1942, the [[Częstochowa Ghetto uprising]] on 30 June 1943, the [[Sosnowiec Ghetto#The uprising|Sosnowiec Ghetto uprising]] on 3 August 1943, and the [[Białystok Ghetto uprising]] on 17 August 1943.</ref>

About two-thirds of the overall number of victims of the Final Solution were murdered before February 1943,<ref name="GHDI">{{cite journal |publisher=German History in Documents and Images, GHDI |volume= 7. Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 |title=Statistical Report on the "Final Solution", known as the Korherr Report of 23 March 1943 |author=Paula Lerner |year=2007 |journal=Die Endlösung by Gerald Reitlinger |url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English42.pdf}}</ref> which included the main phase of the extermination programme [[Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France|in the West]] launched by [[Eichmann]] on 11 June 1942 from Berlin.<ref name="Yahil389">{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |author=Leni Yahil |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |isbn=0195045238 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&q=West+European&pg=PA389}}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]] run by the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn]] and several other national railway systems delivered condemned Jewish captives from as far as Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moravia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and even Scandinavia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRFG-HKoBgEC&q=Reichsbahn+Railways&pg=PA57 |author=Ronald J. Berger |year=2002 |title=Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0202366111 |pages=57–58 |quote=Bureaucrats in the Reichsbahn performed important functions that facilitated the movement of trains. They constructed and published timetables, collected fares, and allocated cars and locomotives. In sending Jews to their death, they did not deviate much from the routine procedures they used to process ordinary train traffic.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben|last1=Hecht|first2=Julian|last2=Messner|date=31 December 1969 |url=http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222020235/http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-date=22 February 2014 |title=Holocaust: The Trains |publisher=Aish.com Holocaust Studies}}</ref> The cremation of exhumed corpses to destroy any evidence left behind began in early spring and continued throughout summer.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|pp=300–01}} The nearly completed clandestine programme of murdering all deportees was explicitly addressed by Heinrich Himmler in his [[Posen speeches]] made to the leadership of the Nazi Party on 4 October and during a conference in Posen ([[Poznań]]) of 6 October 1943 in occupied Poland. Himmler explained why the Nazi leadership found it necessary to murder Jewish women and children along with the Jewish men. The assembled functionaries were told that the Nazi state policy was "the extermination of the Jewish people" as such.<ref>Letter written by [[Albert Speer]] who attended Posen Conference.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly |title=Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan |last=Connolly |first=Kate |date=13 March 2007 |access-date=29 May 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref>

{{blockquote|We were faced with the question: what about the women and children?–I have decided on a solution to this problem. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men only—in other words, to kill them or have them killed while allowing the avengers, in the form of their children, to grow up in the midst of our sons and grandsons. The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth.|Heinrich Himmler, 6 October 1943<ref>Bradley F. Smith & Agnes Peterson (1974), ''Heinrich Himmler. Speeches'' Frankfurt/M., pp. 169 f. {{OCLC|1241890}}; {{cite web |url= http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160127090051/http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-date=27 January 2016 |title=Himmler's Speech in Posen on 6 October 1944 |date= 12 March 2012 |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=Holocaust Controversies Reference Section }}; also (with differing translation) in {{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214192421/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-date=14 December 2013 |title=Heinrich Himmler |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum }}</ref>}}

On 19 October 1943, five days after the prisoner revolt in [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], Operation Reinhard was terminated by [[Odilo Globocnik]] on behalf of Himmler. The camps responsible for the murder of nearly 2,700,000 Jews were soon closed. Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka were dismantled and ploughed over before spring.<ref name="deathcamps">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7p2rngKmZuUC&q=%22Oct.+19%2C+1943%22 |title=Hitler's death camps: the sanity of madness |first=Konnilyn G. |last=Feig |publisher=Holmes & Meier Publishers |page=30 |year=1981 |isbn=0841906750 |via=Remember.org |quote=On November 4, 1943, Globocnik wrote to Himmler from Trieste: "I have, on Oct. 19, 1943, completed Action Reinhard, and closed all the camps." He asked for special medals for his men in recognition of their "specially difficult task". Himmler responded warmly to 'Globos' on November 30, 1943, thanking him for carrying out Operation Reinhard.}} [http://remember.org/fact-fin-lazartr.html book excerpt in full screen]. Also in: {{cite web |title="Final Solution": Overview |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |location=Washington, DC |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302130042/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-date=2 March 2013}}</ref> The operation was followed by [[Aktion Erntefest|the single largest German massacre of Jews]] in the entire war carried out on 3 November 1943; with approximately 43,000 prisoners shot one-by-one simultaneously in [[Majdanek concentration camp|three nearby locations]] by the [[Reserve Police Battalion 101]] hand-in-hand with the [[Trawniki men]] from Ukraine.{{sfnp|Browning|1998|pp=135–42}} Auschwitz alone had enough capacity to fulfill the Nazis' remaining extermination needs.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}}

===Auschwitz II Birkenau===
Unlike Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and [[Lublin-Majdanek]],<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Peter Witte |author2=Stephen Tyas |title=A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=15 |issue=3 |year=2001 |pages=468–86 |doi=10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 |doi-access=free }} See also: {{cite web |author=Oxford Journals |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=Abstract of article |url=http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |year=2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020212003049/http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |archive-date=12 February 2002}}</ref> which were built in the occupied [[General Government]] territory inhabited by the largest concentrations of Jews,<ref name="katz">{{cite book |chapter=Poland's Ghettos at War |publisher=Ardent Media |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-q2qdBzfowC&q=largest+concentrations |title=The Establishment of Ghettos in [occupied] Poland |first=Alfred |last=Katz |location=Twayne Publishers, New York |year=1970 |oclc=141597}}</ref> the killing centre at Auschwitz subcamp of [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Birkenau]] operated directly in [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]]. The new gas chambers at Bunker I were finished around March 1942 when the Final Solution was officially launched at Belzec. Until mid June, around 20,000 Silesian Jews were murdered there using [[Zyklon B]]. In July 1942, Bunker II became operational. In August, another 10,000–13,000 Polish Jews from Silesia were murdered,{{r|Browning544}} along with 16,000 French Jews declared 'stateless',<ref name=PLong10>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Auschwitz+Stammlager+1942 344, 360, 380, 391]}}.</ref> and 7,700 Jews from Slovakia.<ref name=Browning544>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA544 p. 544]}}).</ref>

The infamous 'Gate of Death' at [[Auschwitz II]] for the incoming freight trains was built of brick and cement mortar in 1943, and the three-track rail spur was added.<ref name=ARaw/> Until mid-August, 45,000 Thessaloniki Jews were murdered in a mere six months,{{r|PLong10}} including over 30,000 Jews from [[Sosnowiec Ghetto|Sosnowiec]] (Sosnowitz) and [[Bendzin Ghetto]]s.{{sfnp|Longerich|2010|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Sosnowitz p. 380: Extermination].}} The spring of 1944 marked the beginning of the last phase of the Final Solution at Birkenau. The new big ramps and sidings were constructed, and two freight elevators were installed inside Crematoria II and III for moving the bodies faster. The size of the ''[[Sonderkommando]]'' was nearly quadrupled in preparation for the Special Operation Hungary (''Sonderaktion Ungarn'').<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greif |first1=Gideon |title=Im Zentrum der Endlösung – Alltag in der Todesfabrik Auschwitz |date=2022 |publisher=Tuebingen, TOS Verlag |pages=528 |url=https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de/de/detail/ISBN 9783965890022/Greif-Gideon/Im-Zentrum-der-Endl%C3%B6sung |access-date=22 May 2022|isbn=978-3-96589-002-2}}</ref> In May 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the site of one of the two largest mass murder operations in modern history, after the ''[[Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)|Großaktion Warschau]]'' deportations of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] inmates to Treblinka in 1942. It is estimated that until July 1944 approximately 320,000 Hungarian Jews were gassed at Birkenau in less than eight weeks.<ref name=ARaw>{{cite book |title=Auschwitz: The Nazi Solution |author=Andrew Rawson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=izigBwAAQBAJ&q=%22Gate%20of%20Death%22 |publisher=Pen and Sword |year=2015 |isbn=978-1473855410 |pages=69, 87, 123}} While the numbers considerably reduced through June and July [1944], nearly 440,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to Auschwitz in less than eight weeks; 320,000 were murdered. — [https://books.google.com/books?id=9zegBwAAQBAJ&q=Sonderaktion+Hungary+1944&pg=PT144 Rawson, 144.] ''Also in:'' {{cite web |title=The Destruction of the Jews of Hungary |year=2007 |author1=S.J. |author2=Carmelo Lisciotto |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/DestructionofHungarianJews.html |publisher=H.E.A.R.T |quote=Of the 381,600 Jews who left Hungary between 15 May 1944 and 30 June 1944 it is probable that 200,000 – 240,000 were gassed or shot on 46 working days.}}</ref> The entire operation was [[Auschwitz Album|photographed by the SS]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hellman |first1=Peter |last2=Meier |first2=Lili |last3=Klarsfeld |first3=Serge |author-link3=Serge and Beate Klarsfeld |title=The Auschwitz Album |year=1981 |publisher=Random House |location=New York; Toronto |isbn=0-394-51932-9 |url=http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/0394519329/}}</ref> In total, between April and November 1944, Auschwitz II received over 585,000 Jews from over a dozen regions as far as Greece, Italy, and France, including 426,000 Jews from Hungary, 67,000 from [[Łódź]], 25,000 from [[Theresienstadt]], and the last 23,000 Jews from the General Government.<ref name="Anatomy">{{cite book |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |first1=Israel |last1=Gutman |first2=Michael |last2=Berenbaum |author3=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1998 |page=89 |isbn=025320884X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mub823JQrdUC&q=Arrival+Specific+Regions+November+1944 }}</ref> Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, when the gassing had already stopped.{{sfnp|Yahil|1991|p=637}}