Extermination camps, unlike concentration camps, were used exclusively for the murder of a population, primarily Jews. Incorrectly, the terms “concentration” and “extermination” are commonly used interchangeably.
Concentration camps were initially intended for German anti-Nazi dissidents, whom the regime sought to “re-educate.” These camps later became a tool of repression against foreign populations in the territories annexed by Hitler. An estimated 1.7 million men and women were interned in these camps; about one-third of whom died as a result of extreme conditions and epidemics. The Nazi policy of genocide, which targeted Jews (approximately 6 million victims) and Roma, took place outside these camps.
Many Jews starved to death in the overcrowded and destitute ghettos of Eastern Europe. Nearly half of them were murdered in mass executions (known as the “Shoah by bullets”), particularly in Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania.
Mobile gas trucks (emitting carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc.) reinforce the extermination operation.
The majority of Jews ended up in “extermination” camps. The gas chambers (using Zyklon B) and crematoria, designed in July 1942 to dispose of the bodies, operated there day and night.
The locations of the extermination centers were chosen because of their proximity to rail and road networks, which made it possible to transport the victims there. The barracks consisted of nothing more than a very rudimentary set of structures.
Historians agree that there were six main extermination centers, all located on Polish territory: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau (the only concentration camp complex that served as both an extermination center and a concentration camp at the same site).
References:
— Bruttmann Tal, Christophe Tarricone, 2020, *The Hundred Words of the Shoah*, Que sais-je? PUF.
— Raul Hilberg, 1988 , *The Destruction of the European Jews*, Fayard.
