WoRlD WaR Ii: CoUrSe AnD CoNsEqUeNcEs The Final Solution
In 1942, at a conference in Wannsee outside Berlin, plans were made for the extermination of all Jews living in German-controlled lands. The Nazis placed Adolf Eichmann in charge of what became known as the Final Solution. The conference examined how to make these killings more efficient. The plan involved gathering all Jews across Europe and transporting them to extermination camps built for this purpose in Poland and western USSR. Camps at Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka used Zyklon-B gas to kill large numbers of Jews whose bodies were then cremated (burnt).
From 1942 Jews from all over Europe were transported in cattle trains to these extermination camps. The building of these camps in occupied Poland was known as Operation Reinhard. In these killing camps, it is estimated that approximately 1,526,500 Jews were killed between March 1942 and November 1943.
SWEDEN DENMARK
Fig 14.24 Adolf Eichmann was in charge of implementing the Final Solution.
Chelmno Bergen-Belsen Berlin
GREATER GERMANY Buchenwald
Dachau SWITZERLAND ITALY
Fig 14.25 The location of some of the concentration and extermination camps in Germany and Poland.