Page 47 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Jesteśmy drzewami wiecznymi.

Instytut Pamięci Narodowej
Institute of National Remembrance

In mid-July 1941, Arthur Greiser, the governor of the Wartheland, initiated
the first talks about the mass extermination of Jews in the area controlled
by him. In the autumn, he obtained the permission from the Reich authorities
to murder “unproductive” Jews. He immediately ordered the construction of
a camp, where this extermination was to be carried out. The extermination
camp was built 55 km north-west of Łódź, in the village of Chełmno on the
River Ner, where farm buildings were used for that purpose. Starting in De-
cember 1941, extermination of Jews from the district was carried out there
with the use of mobile gas chambers, which had already been tested during
the T4 campaign, where the mentally ill had been killed. In the period from
January to September 1942 and in June 1944, over seventy-seven thousand
Jews and four thousand, three hundred Roma were deported from the Łódź
ghetto and murdered in Chełmno. In the photo: deportees to Chełmno are
transferred in Koło to narrow-gauge cars to be taken to the camp, besides:
a truck – mobile gas chamber from Chełmno death camp.

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