Chelmno

Chelmno (also known as Kulmhof) , another destruction camp located in Poland .
From december 1941 it's started to assemble and kill Jews and Gypsies .
Like other camps , it was divided into sections , administrative , barracks , gasvans and burial pits .
Yes Chelmno used gasvans , 3 to be exactly , specially constructed vans on a Renault chasis with airtight compartment . The double doors were made airtight . The floor was of wood in the airtight compartment to make the cleaning afterwards a bit easy .
Beneath it was an aperture with a nozzle to wich the pipe from the exhaust was connected .
About 145.000 were gassed in these vans ... .

Gassing in Chelmno started on 7 december 1941 , first deportees were Jews and 5000 gypsies .
These came from Germany , Austria and Czechoslovakia .
After the assasination of Reinhard Heydrich and the destruction of the town Lidice , 88 children of that town were send to Chelmno and were killed .

The camp commander , Herbert Lange , wasn't a stranger in the usage of gas , he was active at the T4 euthanasia program where he gassed psychiatric patients in such vans .
So he and his men were send to Chelmno .
Lange's men : 15-20 SIPO men and about 80-100 Shutzpolizei men .
The prisoners were told that this again was a transit camp , after unclothing and giving their valuables , they were jammed with 50 to 70 men in such a van . Doors closed and engine was swithced on , the driver then went for a spin in the nearby Rzuchow forest where another part of the camp was , the Waldlager .
Here SS man prepared massgraves , dug by slave laboring Jews .
By that time everyone in the van was gassed by the exhaustpipe connection and were thrown into these massgraves by Jews who were chained together to prevent escape .

March 1943 the camp was closed but re-opened again in july 1944 to help with the disposal of the Lodz ghetto . Here 25.000 Jews again were gassed .
The nazi's again covered the evidence and was going to shot the 48 Jew consisting workgroup in january 1945 , the group resisted and tried to escape , a handfull made it .
The camp closed down on 17 january 1945 .
Estimated is that 300.000 Jews found death in Chelmno .

Yaakov Grojanowski escaped at Chelmno in mid january 1942 . He made his way to the Warsaw ghetto and informed the ghetto leadership about their "future" . These men passed it on to Polish resistance wich then informed London .