Remnants of personal effects found at the site of the exterminations at Chelmno

The extermination camp at the village of Chelmno in Poland was the first camp in which mass executions were carried out by means of gas and the first site, outside Nazi occupied USSR, where mass killings were carried out in the framework of the “Final Solution”.

The camp was set up in an old palace inside the village where three gas vans were operated. The victims were first concentrated in the courtyard of the palace where they were reassured that they were being sent to a work camp. They were then taken to the ground floor where they were told to strip. Their valuables were collected in baskets and marked with their names to create the impression that they would shortly be returned. From here they were taken to the cellar where they were forced to run down an enclosed ramp at the end of which was a gas van with open doors. They had no alternative other than to enter it. When the doors of the van were closed, the engine was switched on and the van started moving with the exhaust pipe leading into it. In this manner, the victims suffocated within 10 minutes. The van continued to travel into the forest where the slain were unloaded. The Nazis worked to destroy the site and obliterate all signs of the mass murders. The victims’ belongings were buried along with the ruins of the buildings.

At Chelmno more than 320,000 people from Poland, Germany, Austria and Luxemburg were murdered. Only three people managed to escape their fate at this extermination camp, and only Shimon Srebnik is alive today and lives in Israel.

Displayed here are some of the remnants of Chelmno victims’ belongings that were excavated by the directors of the site in Poland and transferred to Yad Vashem in April 2001.

Permanent Loan,  Yad Vashem Collection, Jerusalem, Israel
Courtesy of Dr. Lucja Nowak   Director, Konin Regional Museum