Chelmno was established in November 1941. Chelmno was also known as Kulmof. It was fifty miles away from the city of Lodz. Chelmno was the first camp that had mass killings by the means of gas, which was part of the Final Solution. It was first led and commanded by Herbert Lange.
People from the Lodz Ghetto being marched to Chelmno.	On December 7, 1941, the first transport arrives. On the following day, December 8, 1941, the mass killing began. The executions were mainly for Jews living in the Lodz ghetto and Warthegau region. Sonderkommandoes were special units used to operate and oversee the killings. The first Jews arrive from Lodz in the middle of January 1942.
The killings usually took place in the gas vans. These vans looked very much like delivery vans today. They would usually cram fifty to seventy people into a van at one time. Then they would suffocate them with fumes from the exhaust pipe. While they drove to open pits. By the time they got there the prisoners were already dead so they then just had to dump the bodies into the pits. Three of these vans were used at Chelmno.	A gas van they used at Chelmno.
Until Spring of 1942 bodies were buried in huge pits, but in 1942 two crematories were built to burn the carcasses. The bones from the crematories were ground-up in mortars, and at first thrown into pre dug pits. After 1943 the bones and ashes were shipped to Zawaki where they were thrown into rivers. From January 1942 on average 1000 people were killed per day until 1943.
In March 1943 transports to Chelmno stopped because most of the Jewish population had been killed off. On April 1943 the crematories were blown up because of the stoppage in executions. Then on April 1944 Nazis decide to begin killings again, so in 1944 two new crematories were built. In these crematories about 100 bodies could be burned at one time.
Chelmno was fully active on Sundays and on holidays. About seventy Jews and eight Polish prisoners worked or were employed in Chelmno. They would search the prisoners for valuables and burn the corpses. They worked in two parties the Hauskommando, in the camp, and the Waldkommando, out in the woods. As a rule the Hauskommando would be executed after several weeks and then replaced with new ones. As a rule for the Waldkommando they would be executed every few days. The valuables from Jews and prisoners mounted to very large sums of money.
The extermination activities at Chelmno lasted from December 8, 1941, to April 9, 1943, and then from April 1944, to January 1945. The estimated killings that took place in Chelmno were 340,000, and out of all those only four survived. On January 17, 1945, the Red Army approaches Chelmno. The Nazis then decide to execute the final forty prisoners and the abandon the camp. While executing the final forty prisoners eight of them decide to rebel and three escape. That day was the last day executions were carried out in Chelmno.

Ryan Kerwin 7^th Social Studies Rossville Jr. High Holocaust Project Spring 2003

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