In what ways did the Nazis attempt to eliminate all Jews in Europe from 1941 onwards?

Although Einsatzgruppen were killing many Jews, Himmler decided that it was too psychologically damaging for his troops to carry on killing women and children and that it also wasted ammunition, the most common method of killing at the time being firing squad. A ‘better’ method was thought up in 1942 with the introduction of gas vans where prisoners were poisoned by carbon dioxide from the exhaust. Yet these were still ineffective as they took up to 15 minutes to kill the Jews and only a few could be fit into the vans at a time and so a more effective method was soon thought up. Nevertheless, over 700,000 Jews were killed in the gas vans.

The Wannsee Conference of January 1942 would seal the fate of Europe’s Jews as Heydrich and Himmler took control of the situation and came up with the ‘Final Solution’. They ordered that Jews were to be sent to concentration or extermination camps.

Concentration camps had been used as early as 1933 for political enemies of the Nazis but as part of the ‘Final Solution’ Jews were sent to these camps to die. Many died as a result of the harsh conditions and forced labour that often resulted in ‘natural wastage’. Prisoners at the camps were also subject to harsh treatment from the guards, many dying from severe beatings, exposure from being left outside, starvation, dog attacks and any other assaults they could think of. These camps were useful to the Nazis as they made a profit from the Jews. However, they would not be effective in eliminating the ‘Jewish problem’ and so extermination camps were built, where Jews would be sent in their millions to die.

The Nazis came up with an effective way to kill Jews when they decided upon extermination camps where many Jews could be killed in gas chambers. Extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chelmno were built, often in Poland, with rail links so that Jews and other prisoners could be easily transported to their deaths. The Jews were herded into cattle trucks with the promise that they were being resettled in the East and then taken to the camps where they were separated into the fit and the unfit for either work or immediate death. The unfit were told that they were to be cleaned of their lice and so they were stripped and their heads shaved before being ushered into a shower room. Instead of water, Cyclon B came out of the showerheads; the entire room was killed in as little as three minutes. Anything that might have been of use to the Nazis, like gold teeth or rings, were then extracted from the corpses which were then cremated and again checked for valuables before being buried.

Extermination camps were the most effective way the Nazis came up with to eliminate the Jews as they were both quick at killing many Jews and were also effective at making a profit from them whereas the other methods of elimination, such as the concentration camps or the Einsatzgruppen, only did one thing, either killing or making profit from the Jews. This meant that extermination camps quickly became the norm for the elimination of the Jews and the extermination camps were to become so effectively used by the Nazis that the Jewish deaths at the camps would add up to almost half of the total number of Jews killed by the entire Nazi Holocaust, including almost the whole Jewish population of Poland.