OCTOBER 1941 NOVEMBER 1943 OPERATION REINHARD OPERATION REINHARD

OCTOBER 1941 - NOVEMBER 1943: OPERATION REINHARD

OPERATION REINHARD • Operation Reinhard was the codename for the Nazi plan to efficiently exterminate Polish Jews from the General Government • Lasted from October 1941 -Nov 1943 • Three of the camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka), were built specifically for this purpose, although all six were used • Deadliest phase of the Holocaust, with over 2 million Jews killed in this time • Again, Aktion T-4 acted as an organizational and practical inspiration for the Final Solution • Many of the same personnel were brought from T-4 to work in the extermination camps

OPERATION REINHARD • Death Camps • Death camp construction and management for Op. Reinhard was under the control of SS leader Odilo Globocnik • • Chelmno, Auschwitz, and Madjanek were not under his command The three Op. Reinhard camps were relatively small 25 -35 SS officers managed the camps • About 100 Eastern European collaborators (usually from Ukraine) were employed at each camp as well • Gas chamber mechanisms became standard under Globocnik • IBM subsidiaries in Germany and Poland likely supplied punchcards for train times and prisoners during Operation Reinhard • • However, Nazis struggled with running efficient trains during this period

OPERATION REINHARD • Extermination process • Nazis used misdirection in order to try and fool Jews into compliance in order to avoid revolt • • Not completely successful, many examples of planned and spontaneous resistance Nazis built fake centers to look like housing facilities, train stations, or sanitary/medical stations to fool Jews into thinking they were going somewhere else Jews were told to set their luggage down for “transport to housing” • Most were then led to a “shower facility” after the long train ride, told to put their personal belongings in a bin for safekeeping • These camps did not use Zyklon B pesticides, but captured fuel tanks from Soviet trucks • Chambers were shut for 25 -30 minutes, and camp inmates were required to move and cremate bodies in open pits (no crematorium) •

OPERATION REINHARD • These camps were not concentration camps, but were used exclusively for “liquidation” Did not have electric fences, like Auschwitz, because small numbers of prisoners at any given time • Vast majority of Jews were killed within hours of arrival • • Operation Reinhard claimed the lives of at least 2. 5 million people (2 million Jews) in 15 months– deadliest portion of the Holocaust

OPERATION REICH