The gas chambers’ improved capacity enables the camp authorities to kill up to 1,300 people at a time. The camp authorities kill virtually all of the deportees upon arrival in the reconstructed and newly added gas chambers. Between October 8 and October 20, more than 24,000 Slovak Jews are brought there from the transit camp-ghetto Izbica. A narrow railway trolley from the reception platform to the burial pits is also newly constructed.ĭuring the first week of October 1942, the camp authorities resume mass murder operations in the gas chambers of Sobibor. During the two month lull in transports, the SS also reconstructs the existing gas chambers and adds new ones. Himmler's order accelerates the Operation Reinhard killing program.Īt the end of July, the SS halts deportations to Sobibor in order to modernize the railway spur into the camp. He euphemistically calls this process “resettlement.” An estimated 1,200,000 Jews reside in the General Government. Himmler orders the deportation and murder of all Jews in the General Government by the end of 1942. The three men discuss the killing operations. Krüger is the Higher SS and Police Leader for the General Government. In Lublin, Himmler meets with Operation Reinhard manager Odilo Globocnik and with SS General Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. They were deported either directly or via the transit camp-ghetto in Izbica, a village in Lublin District. The majority were Jews deported from the German Reich, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia. Many of the victims had been deported from cities and towns in the north and east of Lublin District. During this first phase of deportations, from early May until the end of July 1942, the Sobibor killing center authorities kill at least 61,400 Jews. Those selected are used to supply the manual labor necessary to support the mass murder function of the killing center. Approximately 400 prisoners are selected to survive, but only temporarily. The camp staff conducts gassing operations in three gas chambers located in one brick building. Regular transports begin on May 3, with the arrival of 200 Jews from the city Zamosc. Almost all of the Jews brought to Sobibor on this transport are murdered upon arrival. This is the first deportation to Sobibor. In early April 1942, the SS deports 2,400 Jews from the Rejowiec transit ghetto located in Chelm county within Lublin District. Thus, Stangl is familiar with using carbon monoxide gas to kill large numbers of people. At facilities like Hartheim, gas chambers were used as a killing method. The purpose of the “euthanasia” operation was to murder institutionalized persons with physical and mental disabilities. Stangl was previously the deputy supervisor of the so-called " euthanasia" killing center at Hartheim, near Linz, Austria. There, he takes up the position of camp commandant. Īfter the killing center is constructed, SS First Lieutenant Franz Stangl arrives in Sobibor. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, this area was in the Lublin District of the General Government. This is an isolated area located about 50 miles east of the city Lublin, 24 miles north of the town Chelm, and 5 miles south of the town Wlodawa. The killing center is located not far from the local Lublin-Chelm-Wlodawa rail line. Under the supervision of SS Captain Richard Thomalla, SS and police authorities construct the Sobibor killing center in the spring of 1942. Between March 1942 and November 1943, the personnel of Operation Reinhard kill approximately 1.7 million Jews in these three killing centers and related shooting operations. Heydrich was head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and a chief architect of the “ Final Solution.” Three killing centers- Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka-are constructed for the sole purpose of killing Jews. The effort was named after Reinhard Heydrich, who was assassinated in Prague in the spring of 1942. This operation later becomes known as Operation Reinhard (also called Aktion Reinhard or Einsatz Reinhard). In early autumn of that year, Himmler tasks Globocnik with organizing the mass murder of Jews residing in the General Government ( Generalgouvernement ). On July 17, 1941, he appoints Globocnik to the position of Commissioner for the Establishment of SS and Police Bases in the Occupied Eastern Territories. Himmler is SS Chief and Chief of German Police. On November 1, 1939, Heinrich Himmler appoints SS General Odilo Globocnik to the position of SS and Police Leader in Lublin District.
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