At the Killing Centers

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  Killing Centers in German-occupied Poland, 1942

  Killing centers (also referred to as "extermination camps" or "death camps") were designed to carry out genocide. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis established five killing centers in German-occupied Poland—Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau (part of the Auschwitz camp complex). Chelmno and Auschwitz were established in areas annexed to Germany in 1939. The other camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka) were established in the General Government (an administrative unit of occupied Poland). Auschwitz functioned as concentration and forced-labor camps, as well as a killing center. The overwhelming majority of the victims of the killing centers were Jews. An estimated 2.7 million Jews were killed in these five killing centers as part of the Final Solution. Other victims murdered in the killing centers included Roma (Gypsies) and Soviet prisoners of war.

  On this map, the Majdanek camp is labeled as a killing center. In the past, many scholars counted the Majdanek camp (located just outside the city of Lublin) as a sixth killing center. However, based on newer research, Lublin-Majdanek is usually classified as a concentration camp. According to this research, German authorities used Majdanek primarily as a place to concentrate Jews who were being temporarily spared for use as forced laborers. Occasionally, especially after Belzec ceased operating in late 1942, Jews were sent to Majdanek as part of Operation Reinhard to undergo selection. Jews selected as unfit for labor were murdered at Lublin-Majdanek either by shooting or in the camp's gas chambers.

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  Prisoners arriving at the Belzec killing center

  A column of prisoners arrives at the Belzec killing center. Belzec, Poland, ca. 1942.

  In early 1940 the Germans set up a forced-labor camp for Jewish prisoners in Belzec. The inmates were forced to build fortifications and dig anti-tank ditches along the demarcation line between Germany and Soviet-occupied Poland. The camp was closed down at the end of 1940. The following year, in November 1941, construction began on the Belzec killing center.

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  Aerial photograph showing gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau

  Aerial photograph showing the gas chambers and crematoria 2 and 3 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) killing center. Auschwitz, Poland, August 25, 1944.

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  A warehouse at Auschwitz that held clothing taken from victims

  One of many warehouses at Auschwitz in which the Germans stored clothing belonging taken from victims of the camp. This photograph was taken after the liberation of the camp. Auschwitz, Poland, after January 1945.

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  Casting of Majdanek gas chamber door

  This casting of a gas chamber door in the Majdanek camp, near Lublin, Poland, was commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each gas chamber in Majdanek was fitted with an airtight metal door and was bolted shut before gas entered the chamber inside. SS guards could observe the killing process through peepholes in the upper center of the door.

• Abraham Bomba describes gassing operations at Treblinka

  Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports. Abraham escaped from the camp in 1943 and made his way back to Czestochowa. He worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.

• Chaim Engel describes arrival in Sobibor

  In 1939, as Chaim's tour in the Polish army was nearing its scheduled end, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans captured Chaim and sent him to Germany for forced labor. As a Jewish prisoner of war, Chaim later was returned to Poland. Ultimately, he was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation by Soviet forces in June 1944.

• Leo Schneiderman describes arrival at Auschwitz, selection, and separation from his family

  The Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Leo and his family were confined to a ghetto in Lodz. Leo was forced to work as a tailor in a uniform factory. The Lodz ghetto was liquidated in 1944, and Leo was deported to Auschwitz. He was then sent to the Gross-Rosen camp system for forced labor. As the Soviet army advanced, the prisoners were transferred to the Ebensee camp in Austria. The Ebensee camp was liberated in 1945.

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  Sarah Rivka Felman

  One of seven children, Sarah was raised in a Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish home in Sokolow Podlaski, a manufacturing town in central Poland with a large Jewish population of some 5,000. Sarah's parents ran a grain business. In 1930, Sarah began attending public elementary school in Sokolow Podlaski.

  1933-39: After graduating from middle school in 1937 at the age of 14, Sarah helped out her now widowed mother in the family's grain business. Two years later, Germany attacked Poland. German aircraft bombed Sokolow Podlaski's market and other civilian targets. German troops entered the town on September 20 and burned the main synagogue three days later. The Germans then confiscated the family's grain business.

  1940-42: Over the next two years, the Germans imposed restrictions on the Jews, eventually ordering them to wear an identifying Jewish star on their clothing. On September 28, 1941, the Germans set up a ghetto and concentrated the town's Jews there. About a year later, on the most solemn holiday in the Jewish religion, the Day of Atonement, the Germans began to round up the people in the ghetto. Those who resisted or tried to hide were shot. Sarah, her mother and younger brother were herded onto the boxcar of a train.

  On September 22, 1942, Sarah and her family were deported to the Treblinka killing center. She was gassed there shortly after arriving. She was 19 years old.

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  Frimit Bursztyn

  Frimit was one of eight children born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. The Bursztyns lived in the heart of the same Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw where Frimit's father owned and operated a bakery located on Zamenhofa Street. In 1920 the Bursztyns moved to a comfortable, two-bedroom apartment in the same neighborhood at 47 Mila Street. Frimit attended Warsaw public schools.

  1933-39: By 1939 six of Frimit's brothers and sisters had already moved out. Only Frimit and her younger brother were left at home, and they were enjoying their parents' undivided attention. Frimit had finished school and had lots of friends. Her father had given up his business and was working at Warsaw's excellent Kagan Bakery. Nothing could have prepared them for the German invasion in September 1939. Their city was surrendered on September 28.

  1940-44: Frimit's family's apartment was in the heart of the Warsaw ghetto, which was closed off by the Germans in November 1940. Frimit was deported on May 1, 1943, to the Majdanek concentration camp. There, smoke from the crematoria clouded the skies and hung over the prisoners. Her fingers became broken and disfigured as, day after day, she and five other women pushed a heavy wagon filled with manure across the fields surrounding the camp. If they worked too slowly, they were flogged with a bullwhip. They fertilized those fields with their bare hands.

  Over the next two years Frimit was deported to seven more Nazi camps. She was liberated in the Turkheim labor camp on April 27, 1945. In 1949 she immigrated to the United States.

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  Selma Wijnberg

  Selma was the youngest of the Wijnberg's four children, and the only daughter. When she was 7, her family left Groningen to start a business in the town of Zwolle [in the Netherlands]. There her parents ran a small hotel popular with Jewish businessmen traveling in the area. Every Friday there was a cattle market, and many of the cattle dealers came to the Wijnberg's hotel for coffee and business.

  1933-39: At home Selma and her family were observant of Jewish tradition because her mother was religious. Their hotel observed the Jewish dietary laws. At the end of Friday evening prayers, they'd gather at home around the table and sing Hebrew songs. They'd also go to synagogue every Saturday and return home to a sumptuous meal. Selma was very active in Zionist activities and attended Zionist camps every summer.

  1940-44: The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. In 1943 Selma was deported to the Sobibor killing center, where she was one of a few kept alive to work. At the end of her first day at Sobibor they gathered for roll call in the open area of Camp #1. There was a fire from Camp #3; the stench of burning flesh was overwhelming. Someone asked Selma, "Do you know what that fire means?" She shook her head. He explained it was the funeral pyre of their transport. Then the Germans ordered them to dance in couples, while a prisoner played the violin.

  To her knowledge, Selma was the only native Dutch inmate who survived the Sobibor killing center. After the war she married. In 1957 she and her husband settled in the United States.