Chełmno extermination camp
| Chełmno | |
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| Death camp | |
Monument to victims of Nazi extermination camp Kulmhof (Chełmno) in occupied Poland, unveiled in 1990 at the site of the camp
  Chełmno on the map of Nazi extermination camps marked with black and white skulls, Poland's borders before World War II |
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 Chełmno extermination camp
Location of Chełmno in modern Poland
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| Other names | Kulmhof |
| Known for | Genocide during the Holocaust |
| Location | Near Chełmno nad Nerem, Reichsgau Wartheland (German-occupied Poland) |
| Commandant | Christian Wirth |
| Original use | Extermination camp |
| Operational |
December 8, 1941 – April 11, 1943 (1st period), June 23, 1944 – January 18, 1945 |
| Number of gas chambers | 3 gas vans |
| Inmates | mainly Jews |
| Killed | est. 152,000–340,000 |
| Liberated by | Red Army, January 20, 1945 |
| Notable inmates | Mordechaï Podchlebnik, Simon Srebnik, Yakov Grojanowski |
Chełmno extermination camp (German: Vernichtungslager Kulmhof), built during World War II, was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps and was situated 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of the metropolitan city of Łódź, near the Polish village of Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr in German). Following the invasion of Poland in 1939 Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland (currently the Greater Poland Voivodeship), aiming at its complete "Germanization"; the camp was set up specifically to carry out ethnic cleansing through mass killings. It operated from December 8, 1941 parallel to Operation Reinhard during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, and again from June 23, 1944 to January 18, 1945 during the Soviet counter-offensive. Polish Jews of the Łódź Ghetto and the local inhabitants of Reichsgau Wartheland (Warthegau) were exterminated there. In 1943 modifications were made to the camp's killing methods because the reception building was already dismantled.
At a very minimum 152,000 people (Bohn) were killed in the camp, though the West German prosecution, citing Nazi figures during the Chełmno trials of 1962–65, laid charges for at least 180,000 victims. The Polish official estimates, in the early postwar period, have suggested much higher numbers, up to a total of 340,000 men, women, and children. The Kulmhof Museum of Martyrdom gives the figure of around 200,000, the vast majority of whom were Jews of west-central Poland, along with Romani from the region, as well as foreign Jews from Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, Luxemburg, and Austria transported to Chełmno via the Łódź Ghetto, on top of the Soviet prisoners of war. The victims were killed with the use of gas vans. Chełmno was a place of early experimentation in the development of Nazi extermination programme, continued in subsequent phases of the Holocaust throughout occupied Poland.
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