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→The killing centers
As they arrived the victims were divided in two: those fit for work, usually young to middle aged men, and the remainder sent for delousing in the showers. Deceived to the end, the “showers” was actually a sealed room in which a chemical tablet known as “Zyklon-B” was dropped through a hole in the ceiling. The cyanide-based vapors would kill the entire room within minutes; within thirty, the room was emptied by the ''soderkomandos'', cleaned, and ready for another group of victims.
As they arrived the victims were divided in two: those fit for work, usually young to middle aged men, and the remainder sent for delousing in the showers. Deceived to the end, the “showers” was actually a sealed room in which a chemical tablet known as “Zyklon-B” was dropped through a hole in the ceiling. The cyanide-based vapors would kill the entire room within minutes; within thirty, the room was emptied by the ''soderkomandos'', cleaned, and ready for another group of victims.
Of the killing centers, the one at Osweicim, Poland - Auschwitz - was perhaps the most notorious. Auschwitz was three camps: a prisoner-of-war camp (Auschwitz I), a slave-labour camp (Auschwitz III–Buna-Monowitz) and the extermination camp (Auschwitz II–Birkenau). The arrivals would disembark the trains at Auschwitz II, where the old, handicapped, infirm, sick, and pregnant women would face a German doctor (among them the notorious [[Joseph Mengele]]) in the “selektion”, where a flick of a thumb could mean the difference between slave labor in the nearby factory run by I.G. Farben (which took advantage of the forced labor by investing some 700 million Reichsmarks in the project), or the gas chambers. Those selected for labor would be worked to death by a combination of hard labor and inadequate food and medical care; a second selection of their numbers, if they survived, would mean a trip to the gas chambers.
Of the killing centers, the one at Osweicim, Poland - Auschwitz - was perhaps the most notorious. Auschwitz was three camps: a prisoner-of-war camp (Auschwitz I), a slave-labour camp (Auschwitz III–Buna-Monowitz) and the extermination camp (Auschwitz II–Birkenau). The arrivals would disembark the trains at Auschwitz II, where the old, handicapped, infirm, sick, and pregnant women would face a German doctor (among them the notorious [[Joseph Mengele]]) in the ''selektion'', where a flick of a thumb could mean the difference between slave labor in the nearby factory run by I.G. Farben (which took advantage of the forced labor by investing some 700 million Reichsmarks in the project), or the gas chambers. Those selected for labor would be worked to death by a combination of hard labor and inadequate food and medical care; a second ''selektion'' of their numbers, if they had survived, would mean a trip to the gas chambers.
The numbers killed were staggering. Beginning in the summer of 1942 a bare minimum of 960,000 were believed killed at Auschwitz during its three years in operation. At Treblinka, between 750,000-900,000 Jews were killed within 17 months, considering the staff and guards there numbered 120. 600,000 Jews died at Belzac within 10 months by a staff numbering 104. In the eighteen months of its operation, Sobibor killed 250,000.
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