Polish mechanics that worked on these lorries said the large van was 20 x 10 feet, holding about 150 people. The smaller vans were 16 x 8 feet holding 80 to 100 people each. The double doors of the lorries were airtight. The vans had narrow boards that were over-lapping to make them look like they were armored. The gas vans were painted a dark gray color. They looked like normal moving vans. The drivers would wear gas masks so as not to die along with the Jews.
Chelmno was made up of two parts. There was the Schlossager, a manor house where the Jews were kept and killed, and there was the Waldlager, in the Rzuchowski Forest. The Jews were burned and burried here. Jews were shiped from the Kojo junction to the Powiercie station near Chelmno. Then trucks would take them to Schlosslager. When the Jews got to the camp, they were told to undress for baths and disinfection. Their valuables would then be taken. Unlike other camps, the Jews were not separated into groups of men, women and children but all mixed together. On the walls signs read "To The Washroom" or "To The Bath". Then they would be run down a ramp into the waiting trucks, and locked inside. Carbon monoxide from the lorries' exhaust would then kill the Jews inside. The trucks would procede to the Waldlager in the Rzuchowski Forest to be burned and burried.
By these means, more than 145,000 people were murdered at Chelmno in the first phase of operations. The German's began using gas vans on Dec. 8, 1941. The first deportees were Jews from surrounding communities and about 5,000 Gypsies who had been incarcerated in the Lodz ghetto. From Jan. 16th to Jan. 29th, 1942, 10,000 Jews were deported from Lodz to Chelmno and murdered. They were followed by 34,000 between March 22 and April 2, 1942. 11,700 from May 4th to the 15th, 1942, and 16,000 between Sept. 5th and the 12th, 1942. In addition, 15,200 Jewish slave laborers from the Lodz region were gassed at Chelmno.
Amonst the deportees were Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria who had been transported to the Lodz ghetto. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and the annihilation of the Czech town of Lidice, 88 children from there were sent to Chelmno and murdered.
By March of 1943, most of the Jews in Warthegau had already been murdered. Only the 70,000 Jews in the Lodz ghetto remained. Chelmno camp was wound up and the schloss actually demolished. It was briefly activated on the same lines in April to July 1944 to assist with the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. During this period, an additional 25,000 Lodz Jews were murdered at Chelmno. Afterwards, a unit of "Sonderkommando" 1005 labored to clean up traces of mass murder. On January 17, 1945, the work group, consisting of 48 men, was to be shot, but the Jews revolted and in the ensuing melee a handfull escaped.
