ABSTRACT
Mobile gas vans were sent to each battalion of the Einsatzgruppen. Meanwhile these mobile killing operations were being supplemented by the use of fixed centres, the death camps. The six major death camps constituted the main areas of killing: over two million died at Auschwitz; 1,380,000 at Majdanek; 800,000 at Treblinka; 600,000 at Belzec; 340,000 at Chelmno; and 250,000 at Sobibor. Until the summer of 1942 Jewish deportees from central and western Europe were divided equally between Auschwitz and the other death camps, but in August 1942 Himmler decided that Auschwitz should become the central extermination centre for Western Europe. The deportation of Jews in countries west and south of Poland was on an equally massive scale. On 20 January 1942 the Wannsee Conference discussed the Final Solution to the Jewish problem in a villa outside Berlin. In their quest to carry out the Final Solution, SS doctors played a central role in the functioning of the camps.
