Chełmno extermination camp Chełmno extermination camp , known by the Germans as the Kulmhof concentration camp , was a Nazi German extermination camp situated 50 kilometres ( 31 mi ) from Łódź , near a small Polish village called " Chełmno nad Nerem " ( " Kulmhof an der Nehr " in German ) . After Germany invaded Poland in 1939 , it annexed the area as part of the territory of " Reichsgau Wartheland . " The camp operated in two periods , from to during " Aktion Reinhard " ( the most deadly phase of the Holocaust ) , and from to during the Soviet counter - offensive . It was specifically built to exterminate most of the Polish Jews of the Łódź Ghetto and the local Polish inhabitants of " Reichsgau Wartheland " ( " Warthegau " ) . In between these two periods , modifications were made to the camp ' s killing methods , as the main part of the camp was dismantled in 1943 . At least 152 , 000 people ( Bohn ) were killed in the camp . Due to German efforts to destroy their wartime records , the estimates in the early postwar period based on a statistical approach also ought to be taken into consideration ; these include a total of 340 , 000 victims estimated by GKBZNwP . The murdered were chiefly Polish Jews from the Łódź Ghetto and the surrounding area , along with Romani from Greater Poland . But , during this period , Jews from Hungary , Bohemia , Moravia , Germany , Luxemburg , and Austria were also transported to Chelmno via the Łódź Ghetto , and Soviet prisoners of war were killed there . The camp killed most of the victims by the use of gas van s . The camp was a center for early experimentation and development of methods of mass murder , some of which were applied in later phases of the Holocaust . Sources vary , but in total , they suggest that only four Jewish males had survived the Chełmno extermination camp by war ' s end ; one was fifteen years old . The " Holocaust Encyclopedia " notes that seven escaped from work details during the 1940s ; among them was Yakov Grojanowski , who documented the camp ' s operations in his " Grojanowski Report . " But he was later captured and killed at another death camp before war ' s end . In June 1945 two survivors testified at a trial of captured camp personnel in Łódź , Poland . The three best - known survivors testified about their Chełmno experiences at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem . Two also testified at the Chełmno Trials , conducted from 1962 - 1965 in West Germany . Command structure . Governor ( " Reichsstatthalter " ) of the " Reichsgau Wartheland " , Arthur Greiser , initiated setting up an extermination centre at Chełmno . In a letter to Himmler dated 30 May 1942 , Greiser referred to an authorisation he had received from him and Reinhard Heydrich , to start the " Sonderbehandlung " ( Special Handling , i . e . mass execution without judicial process ) of 100 , 000 Jews , about one - third of the total Jewish population of the " Wartheland " territory . The letter stated that the process of killing those Jews was expected to be completed very soon . One theory is that Greiser ' s request arose from the German Government ' s decision of October 1941 to deport German Jews to the Łódź Ghetto ( " Litzmannstadt " ) in central Poland . Greiser wanted to create space for the incoming German Jews by killing off part of the existing Polish Jewish population . According to post - war testimony by the Higher SS and Police Leader for " Reichsgau Wartheland " , SS General Wilhelm Koppe , he received an order from Himmler to liaise with " Reichsstatthalter " Greiser to carry out the " Sonderbehandlung " requested by the latter . Koppe entrusted the extermination operation to " SS - Standartenführer " Ernst Damzog , Commander of Security Police and SD from the headquarters in occupied Poznań ( Posen ) . Damzog personally selected staff for the killing centre and later supervised its daily operation . Damzog formed an " SS - Sonderkommando " ( special detachment ) commanded by SS Captain Herbert Lange . Lange had previous experience with mass killing of Poles in the " Wartheland " region ( Wielkopolska ) during the " Euthanasia Aktion " of mid - 1940 , when his forces used a mobile gas - chamber as well as shooting other victims . In October 1941 , Lange toured the area looking for a suitable site for an extermination centre , and finally chose Chełmno ( Kulmhof ) because of the estate . He was the first commander of forces at the camp . Architecture . The killing center consisted of a vacated manorial estate in the town of Chełmno and a large forest clearing about northwest of Chełmno , off the east side of the road to Koło and abutting the village of Rzuchów to the south . These sites were known respectively as the " Schlosslager " ( manor - house camp ) and the " Waldlager " ( forest camp ) . On the grounds of the estate was a large two - story brick country house called " the palace . " Its rooms were adapted to use as the reception offices , including rooms for the victims to undress and to give up their valuables . The SS and police staff and guards were housed in other buildings in the town . The Germans had a high wooden fence built around the manor house and the grounds . The clearing in the forest camp , which contained space for mass graves , was likewise fenced off . The camp consisted of three parts : an administration section , barracks and storage for plundered goods ; and a burial and cremation site . Operations . The " SS - Sonderkommando " Lange " " was supplied with three gas vans , assigned by the RSHA in Berlin , for killing mass numbers of victims . These vehicles had been converted to mobile gas - chambers by the use of sealed compartments installed on the chassis , into which the engine exhaust was directed by an attached pipe . The Germans had used such vans successfully in September 1941 to kill mental patients in the occupied Soviet Union . For all practical purposes , the extermination by mobile gas vans proved very efficient . On June 5 , 1942 inspector Becker wrote to " Obersturmbannfuhrer " Rauff in RSHA that , by using just three vans on the Eastern Front ( the " Opel - Blitz " and the larger " Saurerwagen " ) , without any faults , they were able to " process " ( murder ) 97 , 000 Soviet captives in less than six months between December 1941 and June 1942 . The rank and file of the so - called " SS Special Detachment Lange " was made up of Gestapo , Criminal Police , and Order Police personnel , under the leadership of Security Police and SD officers . Herbert Lange was replaced as camp commandant in March ( or April ) 1942 by Schultze . He was succeeded by SS - Captain Hans Bothmann , who formed and led the " Special Detachment Bothmann " . The maximum strength of each Special Detachment was just under 100 men , of whom around 80 belonged to the Order Police . The local SS also maintained a " paper command " of the camps " Allgemeine - SS " inspectorate , to which most of the Chełmno camp staff were attached for administrative purposes . Historians do not believe members of the 120th SS - Standarte office established in Chełmno performed any duties at the camp . Killings begin . The SS and police began killing operations at Chełmno on December 8 , 1941 . The first people brought to the camp were the Jewish and Romany populations of Koło , Dąbie , Sompolno , Kłodawa , Babiak , Izbica Kujawska , Bugaj , Nowiny Brdowskie and Kowale Pańskie . A total of 3 , 830 Jews and around 4 , 000 Gypsies were killed by gas before February 1942 . The victims were brought from all over Koło County to Powiercie by rail . Using whips , the Nazis marched them toward the river near Zawadki , where they were locked overnight in a mill , without food or water . The next morning , they were loaded onto lorries and taken to Chełmno . They were transferred to vans and gassed to death with the exhaust fumes on the way to the burial pits in the forest . The daily average for the camp was about 6 to 9 van loads of the dead . The drivers used gas - mask s . From January 1942 the transports included hundreds of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war . In addition , they included Jews from Germany , Austria , Bohemia , Moravia and Luxemburg , who had first been deported to the ghetto in Łódź , a railroad hub , where they had been resettled for some time . In late January 1942 , the secretary of the local Polish council , Stanisław Kaszyński , and his wife were arrested . He was executed three days later for trying to bring public attention to what was being perpetrated at the camp . His letter was intercepted by the " SS - Sonderkommando " . Murder procedure . During the first five weeks , the murder victims came from the nearby areas . They were transported to the manor house ( " Schlosslager " ) in Chełmno under the guard of Special Detachment called " SS - Sonderkommando Kulmhof " commanded by Herbert Lange . The victims , mostly Jews , disembarked at the courtyard and entered the manor house , where the SS men , wearing white coats and pretending to be medics , waited for them . The deportees were told to undress for bathing , and to have their clothes disinfected before transport to Germany and Austria . Occasionally they were met by a German officer dressed as a local squire with a feather hat , announcing that some of them would remain there . The Jews were led to a special room to strip and hand over their valuables . They were told that all hidden banknotes would be destroyed during steaming and needed to be taken out and handed over for safe - keeping . Wearing just underwear , with the women allowed to keep slips on , they were taken to the cellar and across the ramp into the back of a gas van holding from 50 - 70 people each ( " Opel Blitz " ) and up to 150 ( " Magirus " ) . When the van was full , the doors were shut and the engine was started to pump fumes into the rear compartment . The vans immediately began to transport the victims to the mass graves in the forest . After about 5 – 10 minutes , the victims were killed by asphyxiation . Witnesses heard their screams as they were dying . The vans full of corpses were driven to the forest " Waldlager " camp , to previously excavated mass graves . They were unloaded and cleaned by the " Waldkommando " , and then returned to the manor house . Murder of Jews from the Łódź ghetto . On January 16 , 1942 , the SS and police began deportations from the Łódź Ghetto . German officials transported the Jews from Łódź by train to Koło railway station , six miles ( 10 km ) northwest of Chełmno . There , the SS and police personnel supervised transfer of the Jews from the freight as well as passenger trains , to smaller - size cargo trains running on a narrow - gauge track , which took them from Koło to the Powiercie station , three miles ( 5 km ) northwest of Chełmno . Beginning in late July 1942 , the victims were brought to the camp directly after the regular railway line linking Koło with Dąbie was restored ; the bridge over the Rgilewka River had been repaired . As round - ups in Łódź normally took place in the morning , it was usually late afternoon by the time the victims arrived by rail . Therefore they were marched to a disused mill at Zawadki some two kilometres from Powiercie where they spent the night . The mill continued to be used after the railway repairs , if transports arrived late . The following morning the Jews were transported from Zawadki by truck , in numbers which could be easily controlled at their destination point . They were processed immediately upon arrival at the manor - house camp . Sonderkommando . German authorities selected Jewish prisoners from incoming transports to join the camp " Sonderkommando " , a " special unit " of 50 to 60 men deployed at the forest burial camp . They removed corpses from the gas - vans and buried them in the mass graves . The graves were quickly filled and the smell of decomposing bodies began to permeate the surrounding area , including nearby villages . In the spring of 1942 , the SS ordered burning of the bodies in the forest . The bodies were burned on open air " grids " constructed of concrete ; pipes were used for air ducts , and long ash pans were built below the grid . Later , the Jewish Sonderkommando had to exhume the mass graves and burn the previously interred bodies . In addition , they sorted the clothing of the victims , and cleaned the excrement and blood from the vans . A small detachment of about 15 Jews worked at the manor house , sorting and packing the belongings of the victims . Between eight and ten skilled craftsmen worked there to produce or repair goods for the SS Special Detachment . Periodically , the SS executed the members of the Jewish special detachment and replaced them with workers selected from recent transports . The SS held jumping contests and races among the prisoners , who were shackled with chains on their ankles , to deem who was fit to continue working . The losers of such contests were shot . Camp operation . The early killing process carried out by the SS from December 8 , 1941 until mid January 1942 , was intended to kill Jews and Poles from all nearby towns and villages , which were slated for German colonization ( " Lebensraum " ) . From mid - January 1942 , the SS and Order Police began transporting Jews in crowded freight and passenger trains from Łódź . By then , Jews had also been deported to Łódź from Germany , Bohemia , Moravia , and Luxembourg , and were included in the transports at that time . The transports included most of the 5 , 000 Roma ( Gypsies ) who had been deported from Austria . Throughout 1942 , the Jews from " Wartheland " were still being processed ; in March 1943 the SS declared the district " judenfrei " . Other victims murdered at the killing center included several hundred Poles , and Soviet prisoners of war . During the summer of 1942 , the new commandant Bothmann made substantial changes to the camp ' s killing methods . The change was prompted by two incidents in March and April of that year . First , the gas - van broke down on the highway while full of living victims . Many passers - by heard their loud cries . Soon after that , the Sauer van exploded while the driver was revving its engine at the loading ramp ; the gassing compartment was full of living Jews . The explosion blew off the locked back door , and badly burned the victims inside . Drivers were replaced . Bothmann ' s modifications to the killing methods included adding poison to gasoline . There is evidence that some red powder and a fluid were delivered from Germany by Maks Sado freight company , in order to kill the victims more quickly . Another major change involved parking the gas vans while prisoners were killed . They were no longer driven en route to the forest cremation area with living victims inside . One of the author Franz Kafka ' s sisters , Valeria Pollakova ( Valerie or Valli , born September 25 , 1890 ) was deported to the Łódź ghetto on September 10 , 1942 . That is the last place she was documented . She may have been deported to Chełmno and killed there , or she may have died before that . After having annihilated almost all Jews of " Wartheland " District , in March 1943 the Germans closed the Chełmno death factory , while Operation Reinhard was still underway elsewhere ( other death camps had faster methods of killing and incinerating people ) . Chełmno was not a part of Reinhard . The SS ordered complete demolition of " Schlosslager , " along with the manor house , which was levelled . To hide the evidence of the SS - committed war crimes , from 1943 onward , the Germans ordered the exhumation of all remains and burning of bodies in open - air cremation pits by a unit of " Sonderkommando " 1005 . The bones were crushed on cement with mallet s and added to the ashes . These were transported every night in sacks made of blankets to river Warta ( or the Ner River ) on the other side of Zawadka , where they were dumped into the water from a flat - bottomed boat or from a bridge . Eventually , the camp authorities bought a bone - crushing machine ( " Knochenmühle " ) from Schriever and Co . in Hamburg to speed up the process . The final extermination phase . In April 1944 , the Germans renewed deportations to Chełmno to liquidate the Łódź ghetto , where 70 , 000 Jews still worked making needed materials for the Germans . The SS Special Detachment " Bothmann " returned to the forest camp and supervised the renewed killing operations . They murdered an additional 25 , 000 Łódź Jews in the last phase of the camp . The victims were taken to the village church at Chełmno for the night , where they were directed to leave their bundles . They were driven to the forest , where the camp authorities had constructed two reception huts , and two new open - air cremation pits . The SS and police guarded the victims as they undressed and gave up valuables before entering gas - vans . In this final phase of the camp operation , all victims ' bodies were burned immediately after death . The Germans and Polish police also killed Jews by shooting them or putting them into the creamation pits alive . From mid - July 1944 , the SS and police began deporting the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz - Birkenau . In September 1944 , the SS brought in a new Commando 1005 of Jewish prisoners from outside the " Wartheland " District to exhume and cremate any remaining corpses and to remove any evidence of the mass murder operations . A month later , the SS and police executed about half of the 80 - man detachment after this work was done . The officials sent the gas - chamber vans back to Berlin . Shooting the remaining Jewish workers to death , the Germans abandoned the Chełmno killing center on January 18 , 1945 , as the Soviet army approached ( it reached the camp two days later ) . The 15 - year - old Jewish prisoner , Simon Srebnik , was the only one to survive the last executions . Historians estimate that the SS killed at least 152 , 000 people at Chełmno between December 1941 and March 1943 , and in June / July 1944 . Note : a 1946 – 47 report by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland placed the number closer to 340 , 000 , based on a statistical approach , as the camp authorities had destroyed railway records in an effort to hide their actions . Testimonies . After the war , Chełmno extermination camp personnel were tried in court cases in Poland and in over a period of about 20 years . The first judicial trial of the former members of the " SS - Sonderkommando Kulmhof " took place in 1945 at the District Court in Łódź . The subsequent four trials , held in Bonn , began in 1962 and concluded three years later in 1965 in Cologne . Adolf Eichmann testified about the camp during his 1961 war - crimes trial in Jerusalem . He visited it once in late 1942 . Simon Srebnik , from the burial " Sonderkommando , " testified in both the Chelmno Guard and Eichmann trials . Nicknamed " Spinnefix " at the camp , Srebnik was recognised only by the Chelmno Guards by this name . Walter Burmeister , a gas - van driver ( not be confused with the camp ' s " SS - Unterscharfuehrer " Walter Burmeister ) , testified in Bonn in 1967 : Survivors . Determining the identities of the few survivors of Chełmno had presented ambiguity because records used different versions of their names . One survivor may not have been recorded in the early postwar years because he did not testify at trials of camp personnel . According to the " Holocaust Encyclopedia " , a total of seven Jews from the burial " Sonderkommando " escaped from the " Waldlager " . Five escaped during the winter of 1942 , including Mordechaï Podchlebnik , Milnak Meyer , Abraham Tauber , Abram Roj , and Szlamek Bajler ( whose identity was later established as Yakov ( or Jacob ) Grojanowski ) . Mordechaï Zurawski and Simon Srebnik escaped later . Srebnik was among Jews shot by the Germans two days before the Russians entered Chelmno , but he survived . Yakov ( or Jacob ) Grojanowski wrote about the operations of the camp in his " Grojanowski Report . " But Grojanowski was captured and murdered in the gas chamber at Bełżec extermination camp before the end of the war . Other of the escapees who have not been documented since the postwar period likely died during the war . In June 1945 , both Podchlebnik and Srebnik , then age fifteen , testified at a trial in Lodz , Poland of camp personnel . In addition to being included in the " Holocaust Encyclopedia " list , Mordechaï Zurawski is included as a survivor in three other sources each of which documents his testifying , along with Srebnik and Podchlebnik , about his experience at Chełmno at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem . In addition , Srebnik testified in the Chelmno Guard Trials of 1962 / 3 . The French director Claude Lanzmann included interviews with Srebnik and Podchlebnik in his documentary " Shoah " , referring to them as the only two Jewish survivors of Chełmno , but he was in error . Some sources repeat that only Simon Srebnik and Mordechaï Podchlebnik survived the war but these are in error . Podchlebnik is sometimes referred to as Michał ( or Michael ) , in Polish and English versions of his name . In 2002 Dr . Sara Roy of Harvard University wrote that her father , Abraham , was one of " two survivors " of Chełmno . Her father is the " Abram Roj " noted as an escapee by the " Holocaust Encyclopedia , " as Abram / Avram stands for Abraham , and Roj appears to have been transliterated or anglicized to Roy . She was mistaken about the total number of survivors .