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Archive Helps Detail Scope of Nazi Camps
Organized killings began shortly after the war started in late 1939 at so-called "euthanasia sites," where the victims were physically or mentally handicapped people or prisoners no longer capable of work. Estimates say the number reached 200,000.
By 1940, Jews in Poland and Russia were being confined in ghettos. As German men were needed to fight, men and women were brought from Poland, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union and other occupied nations to work in German industries. Labor camps proliferated.
  This aerial view shows the layout of the largest concentration camp and death camp run by Nazi Germany during World War II at Auschwitz near the Polish town of Oswiecim, Poland, Aug. 25, 1944. Auschwitz is the main camp and Birkenau is the nearby extermination center. (AP Photo) (AP) PHOTOS |
In 1941 the Germans devised the Final Solution to exterminate Europe's Jews. In September, even before the plan was formally approved, the SS began experimenting with gas chambers at Auschwitz, about 40 miles from the Polish city of Krakow.
Auschwitz was the largest of six camps whose primary purpose was to kill Jews at maximum speed. In 1941-42, more death camps were built in Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek.
By the time Germany capitulated in May 1945 and disbelieving Allied forces marched into the camps, 2.7 million people had been incinerated in the ovens or open pits of these six compounds. Of every three Jews in Europe at the start of the war, two were dead.
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AP Correspondents Melissa Eddy in Bad Arolsen and Randy Herschaft in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
International Tracing Service: http:/
U.S. Holocaust Museum (encyclopedia of camps): http:/
