Chełmno extermination camp
After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, special extermination squads (the "Einsatzgruppen") were organised to kill Jews in the areas of eastern Poland which had been annexed by the Soviets in 1939. The Nazi anti-Jewish persecutions assumed the characteristics and proportions of genocide, and, from the fall of 1941, of the organized Final Solution. The Chełmno extermination camp near Łódź was put into operation first. Beginning on 8 December 1941, at least 150,000 Jews were murdered there.