January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was introduced as the new Chancellor of Germany.  Hitler had many plans of what he wanted to do with his new position.  One of the things Hitler was planning to establish was the death camps.

     The first concentration camp was opened Wednesday March 22, 1933; its name was Dachau, which was located in Poland.  In 1933 at the beginning of may there was 1200 prisoners at that camp.  One of the most devastating things that happened at Dachau and many other death camps were its murdering of the Jews.  Inmates who were chosen in a selection process were sent to the gas chambers.  When the people were all dead their bodies were sent to a mass grave and their bodies were burned for 10-15 minutes and this was just the beginning of it all.

This is the entrance into the camp of Dachau.

     In 1938 two more camps were established, Flossenburg, which was a little out of Beyreuth, Germany.    Flossenburg was ordered by Heinrich Himmler in May 1938.  Both camps started out with very little inmates. Sachsenhausen was established July 12, 1938 about 35 km from Berlin, Germany.  Sachsenhausen started with only 50 inmates and one month later in August had 900 prisoners and by the end of that September had 8,000 people set in that one death camp.  April 20, 1945, Sachsenhausen had sent 33,000 of its inmates on a death march.  Today Sachsenhausen and Flossenburg are not very well known but were just as grueling.

     The best known death camp today is Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz-Birkenau was established ,on the order of Heinrich Himmler , on May 27, 1940, it was the largest Nazi concentration camp.  Auschwitz itself had three main camps which all occupied Poland during World War 2.  The first Prisoners at Auschwitz were Polish Politicals but in June 1942 the Nazis put out an order to destroy the Jewish population.  Today Auschwitz is known for its great genocide. The majority of the Jews who were first sent straight to the gas chambers.  Only 25% of its inmates were selected to do labor work.  Six hundred sixty-seven people escaped from Auschwitz and of those people 270 of them were recaptured and executed. Millions of people died at Auschwitz alone.

This is a map of all the death camps in Europe during WW2.

     Majdanek and Chelmno were both established in 1941. Majdanek was only expected to hold  20,000-25,000 prisoners  and ended up holding 150,000 inmates and that was just in the beginning in the end there was 360,00 deaths at Majdanek.  Chelmno was established November of 1941 and extermination began December 8 before the Jews arrived in January 1942.  When new prisoners first came to the camp they were told they were going to go do labor work but before they could work the officers told them they needed showers and they also needed to disinfect their clothes.  This did but happen when the new arrivals were told they were going to the “bath-rooms” that was just a code name for the gas chambers and the people were killed on first arrival.  Chelmno was specifically for killing no labor happened at Chelmno.  340,000 people died in the gas chambers at Chelmno.

This is a picture taken of a mass grave in the camp of Belsen.

     Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, and Treblinka were three he last camps established in the Holocaust.  Sobibor and Treblinka opened in 1942 with the same idea to do exactly what other camps did, kill.  Sobibor had at least 250,000 deaths and the majority of them were Jews.  Even though Sobibor and Treblinka both opened in 1942, Sobibor was not near as terrible as Treblinka.  Treblinka was built in late May early June and the killing began in July.  Some just thought Treblinka was a transit camp where people were kept and held, but Treblinka was a death camp just like all the others.  Jews and gypsies form four different countries were killed in the camp and some were killed out in the Warsaw Ghetto, altogether 850,000 were killed in Treblinka or by people from the camp.  Bergen-Belsen was later established in 1943 with five sub camps.  50,000 died in Bergen-Belsen.

   Those camps were not the only ones that existed during the Holocaust, there were eighteen other death camps in six different countries that were not as well known or killed as many people.  Although all camps from the Holocaust were invaded by the SS army or U.S. army in 1945 and they were liberated.  That was the year the camps died and not the people.