From Life to Death
A crematory at Auschwitz.
Extermination camps were extremely popular during the Holocaust, as Jews and other racial minorities were sent there to be killed by the Nazis. At these extermination camps, it was likely that prisoners would be killed by means of a gas chamber, a mass shooting, or a medical experiment gone wrong. Some of the most well-known extermination camps were Auschwitz and Treblinka, however there were six camps in total that the Nazis built which had the main function of extermination.
Auschwitz is the most well-known extermination camp, and for good reasons. It was the largest of the extermination camps that the Nazis built, and when it first opened, had other purposes besides just extermination. Auschwitz first started as a labor concentration camp, and then moved on to be more of just an extermination camp. Its main source of extermination was the use of the gas chamber, as it was the quickest and most efficient way to execute a large number of people in a relatively short period of time. View this website to see images taken at Auschwitz during the Holocaust to experience what life was really like for those who passed through the camps.
Another fairly popular extermination camp of the Holocaust would be Treblinka. Located about fifty miles out of Warsaw, Poland, it was responsible for the extermination of around 265,000 Jews throughout the Holocaust. This camp was handled with as much secrecy as possible, as the staff of the camp did not wish to face rebellion of the Jews that were coming to inhabit the camp. The camp first opened with only three gas chambers for its victims, but by the end of the war, it had expanded to six chambers. However,
not of the people who were deported to the camp went right to the gas chambers. Some were picked to work in the field for a few days at a time, and then once they got weak, then they were sent to the gas chambers for extermination. View more pictures of life at Treblinka here. Both Auschwitz and Treblinka ran on gas chambers in order to exterminate their victims, however there were a few other methods that were used throughout the time period, such as mass shootings and medical experiments gone wrong.