Killing Operations Begin at Chełmno

On this day, the SS and police murdered the first transport of Jews at Chełmno. USHMM records that about 700 men, women, and children from Koło had arrived on 7 December and that all of them were killed on 8 December. The gas chambers were the cargo areas of large vans, and the victims were killed with carbon monoxide.

Chełmno was the first stationary site where Nazi authorities used poison gas to murder Jews. It was built to kill Jews from the Warthegau, including people deported from Łódź. USHMM records at least 152,000 Jewish victims and about 4,300 Roma, plus an unknown number of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. The camp operated from December 1941 to April 1943 and again from June 1944 to January 1945. Seven Jewish men are known to have escaped.