---
title: "Holocaust"
description: "Overview of the Holocaust, systematic persecution and murder of the European Jews and concentration camps in Europe in WW2"
url: "https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust"
date: "2026-07-27T08:03:21+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---
### The Holocaust
## World War II’s darkest chapter
Documented through research and eyewitness testimony
[](#) [](#)
- [The Holocaust](#)
For the victims of the Holocaust
[ 
### Dario Gabbai
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Greek
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/dario-gabbai)
[ 
### Nathan Herman Wijnperle
Vught (NL)
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/nathan-wijnperle)
[ 
### Kate Mueller Slonim
Dachau
Nationality: German
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/kate-mueller-slonim)
[ 
### Ruth Rosa Luise Mühlmann
Bernburg Mental Hospital
Nationality: German
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/ruth-rosa-luise-muhlmann)
[ 
### Eva Umlauf Hecht
Novaky and Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Slovak
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/eva-hecht-umlauf)
[ 
### Hendrina Kalkoene - Swaab
Auschwitz
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/hendrina-kalkoene-swaab)
[ 
### Hartog (Harry) Kalkoene
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/hartog-harry-kalkoene)
[ 
### Lotty (Charlotte) Veffer
Auschwitz
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/lotty-charlotte-veffer)
[ 
### Jacqueline Turfkruyer
Theresienstadt
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/jacqueline-turfkruyer)
[ 
### Frits Evenbly
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/the-wallig-family-told-by-frits-evenbly)
[ 
### Jean Maupoint
Dora Mittelbau
Nationality: French
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/jean-maupoint)
[ 
### Tadeusz Pietrzykowski
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Polish
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/tadeusz-pietrzykowski)
[ 
### Herman Grossman
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Czech Republic
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/herman-grossman)
[ 
### Selma Velleman
Ravensbrück
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/selma-van-de-perre-velleman)
[ 
### Robert "Bob" Cohen
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Dutch
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/robert-cohen)
[ 
### Jan Komski
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Nationality: Polish
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/jan-komski)
[](#)
[](#)
- [ Nuremberg race laws ](#nuremberg-race-laws)
- [ Star of David ](#star-of-david)
- [ Concentration Camps ](#the-nazi-camp-system)
- [ Einsatzgruppen ](#einsatzgruppen)
- [ Final Solution ](#final-solution)
- [ Operation Reinhard ](#operation-reinhard)
- [ Sonderaktion 1005 ](#sonderaktion-1005)
- [ Survivors ](#survivors)
## What was the Holocaust?
The **Holocaust**, also known as the **Shoah**, was the systematic persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by **Nazi Germany** and its collaborators during **World War II**. Millions of others, **including Roma** and **Sinti**, **people with disabilities**, **political prisoners**, Soviet prisoners of war and homosexuals, were also **persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime**.
The word **Holocaust** is derived from the Greek word ***holokauston***, meaning "**burnt offering**", while the Hebrew word **Shoah** means "catastrophe".
> Today, Shoah is used specifically to describe the genocide of the Jewish people during the **Holocaust**.
### When did the Holocaust take place?
The **Holocaust** took place between **1941 and 1945**, although the persecution of Jews began years earlier after [**Adolf Hitler**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-adolf-hitler) came to power in **1933**. Anti-Jewish laws, discrimination, ghettos, deportations and mass shootings eventually led to the establishment of extermination camps where millions of people were murdered.
### Why did the Holocaust happen?
The **Holocaust** was driven by **Nazi racial ideology and extreme antisemitism**. [**Adolf Hitler**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-adolf-hitler) and the **Nazi Party (NSDAP)** falsely claimed that **Germans belonged to a superior race** and blamed Jews for many of Germany's political, economic and social problems. These beliefs led to the systematic persecution and eventual genocide of Europe's Jewish population.
### Who were the victims of the Holocaust?
Although the Holocaust primarily targeted the Jewish people, many other groups also suffered persecution. Victims included **Roma and Sinti**, **people with physical and mental disabilities**, **political opponents**, **homosexuals**, **Jehovah's Witnesses** and **Soviet prisoners of war**.
> Millions of innocent people lost their lives under Nazi rule.
### How was the Holocaust carried out?
The Holocaust was carried out through anti-Jewish laws, forced deportations, ghettos, mass shootings by the **Einsatzgruppen**, the **Aktion T4** euthanasia programme, forced labour, starvation and extermination camps such as [**Auschwitz**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz), **Treblinka**, [**Sobibor**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor) and **Belzec**. It became one of the largest organised crimes in human history.
### How many people were murdered during the Holocaust?
Approximately **six million Jews** were murdered during the Holocaust. Millions of other victims were also persecuted and killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
> The Holocaust remains one of history's greatest atrocities and continues to be studied through historical research, archival documents and eyewitness testimony.
### Is the Holocaust the same as Concentration Camps?
### Understanding the difference
The following is something most people are not aware of. The Holocaust, the systematic murder of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire" or "burnt offering".
The concentration camps can therefor not be equated with the Holocaust and were basically "just" a means of bringing about the Holocaust. This is because sometimes Jews were sent to concentration camps for work only. There are strong interactions and overlaps between the Holocaust and concentration camps because they coexcisted.
> Concentration camps are in most peoples’ minds equal to the Holocaust, which is fully understandable but not historically correct.
---
Page was updated on: 27 July 2026
### What were the Nuremberg race laws?
The Nuremberg Laws were passed on 15 September 1935. They were a set of anti-Semitic laws enacted by Nazi Germany. The laws were named after the city of Nuremberg, where they were announced during the annual party rally of the Nazi Party.
The Nuremberg Laws consisted of two main pieces of legislation: **the Reich Citizenship Law** and the **Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor**. The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of their German citizenship and defined them as "subjects" rather than citizens, while the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor was a law against what the Nazis viewed as race mixing or 'race defilement' (**Rassenschande**). It prohibited marriages and extramarital sexual relationships between Jews and Germans.
> The **Nuremberg Laws** were a key step in the Nazi persecution of Jews, and they paved the way for more extreme measures, such as **Kristallnacht** in **1938** and ultimately, the **Holocaust**.
The Nuremberg Laws led to the mass emigration of Jews from Germany and other parts of Europe, as well as the confiscation of their property and assets. Many Jewish scientists, artists, and intellectuals fled Germany, including **Albert Einstein**, **Bruno Walter**, and **Gustav Hertz**, who lost their positions and careers as a result of the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime.
The legacy of the Nuremberg Laws and the Holocaust has had a profound impact on world history and remains a potent reminder of the dangers of racism, discrimination, and prejudice. The international community has since sought to prevent such atrocities from occurring again, including through the establishment of the United Nations and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[](#js-0) 
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935
*(Click on the image for a larger view)*
- The laws were passed by the Reichstag, the German parliament, which was at the time controlled by the Nazi Party.
- The laws were based on the Nazi ideology of racial superiority, which claimed that the Aryan race was superior to all other races.
- The laws were intended to create a "racially pure" state by removing Jews from German society.
- The laws were met with widespread protests from German Jews and their supporters, but they were ultimately upheld by the courts.
- The Nuremberg Laws were a major turning point in the Nazi persecution of Jews, and they paved the way for the Holocaust.
#### Mischlingen / Half breeds
A difficult issue at the Wannsee Conference was the treatment of Jews born of mixed Jewish-non-Jewish marriages or those whose grandparents were Jewish. The Nazis called them "**Mischlingen**" (half-breeds in English) 1st and 2nd degree. No agreement was reached on that. Often people with this or similar backgrounds ended up in the concentration camps. There were some differences with regard to the Nuremberg Race Laws of September 15th, 1935. The most striking addition is the sterilization as an escape clause. There are also some minor adjustments:
All half breeds of the 1st degree are Jews except those who: - Who were married before September 17, 1935 to someone of German blood. Their children (Mischlingen 2nd degree) are also equal to Germans.
- Indispensable for the state. If their status changes in the future, they would become Jews again.
- Mischlingen 1st degree of these two categories who did not allow themselves to be sterilized were considered Jews.
All half breeds of the 2nd degree are Germans unless they: - Descended from two Mischlingen of the 2nd degree.
- Have a distinctively Jewish appearance.
- Acting and feeling like a Jew.
Law for the Safeguard of German Blood and German Honor barred marriage between Jews and other Germans.
### The Star of David
#### The Introduction of the Jewish Badge in Nazi-Occupied Europe
Following the German invasion of Poland on **September 1, 1939**, German authorities mandated the wearing of a "**Jewish badge**" in certain Polish towns and villages. The first town affected was Włocławek, where the decree was enforced on **October 29, 1939**. Governor General **Hans Frank** issued an order on **November 23, 1939**, requiring all Jews over the age of ten to wear a "**Jewish Star**," a white armband with a blue six-pointed star, on the upper right sleeve of their clothing. Severe penalties were imposed on those who did not comply. This requirement extended to men, women, and children.
On **September 1, 1941,** [**Reinhard Heydrich**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-reinhard-heydrich), (on the picture) **Chief of the Reich Security Main Office** (**RSHA**), mandated that all Jews in the Reich aged six and above wear a yellow Star of David on their chest. This yellow star-shaped badge bore the word "**Jude** meaning Jew" in the language of the respective country. For example, in the Netherlands, it read "**Jood**," while in France, it was "**Juif**.
---
**Warning!** This section contains images of the Holocaust and concentration camps and it's victims. Some viewers may find the images disturbing therefore discretion is advised when viewing these pages if you are underage. [ ](https://www.normandy1944.info/stories)
1941
[](#js-1) 
### The Nazi camp system
From the opening of [**Dachau**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/dachau) in **1933** to the extermination camps of **Operation Reinhard** and [**Auschwitz-Birkenau**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz), the Nazi regime created a vast network of transit, concentration, forced labour and death camps. Millions of people were imprisoned, deported, exploited and murdered. Explore the history of the camps and learn what happened at each site.
[ 
### Dachau
Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
Victims: At least 41,500
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/dachau)
[ 
### Auschwitz
Oswiecim, Poland
Victims: ± 1,1 million
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz)
[ 
### Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler, France
Victims: 3.000 in main camp and with the subcamps total was 17.000
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/natzweiler-struthof)
[ 
### Workcamp Geesbrug
Geesbrug, The Netherlands
Victims: Zero
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/workcamp-geesbrug)
[ 
### Sobibor
Sobibor, Poland
Victims: 200.000 +
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor)
[ 
### Kamp Schoorl
Schoorl, The Netherlands
Victims: 0
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/kamp-schoorl)
[ 
### Majdanek
Lublin, Poland
Victims: 78.000
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/majdanek)
[ 
### Neuengamme
Hamburg, Northern Germany
Victims: ± 42.900
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/neuengamme)
[ 
### Camp Erika
Ommen, The Netherlands
Victims: 175
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/camp-erika)
[ 
### Mauthausen
Mauthausen, Upper Austria
Victims: 90.000
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/mauthausen)
[](#)
[](#)
### The Holocaust was initiated by the Einsatzgruppen
The first mass murders of the Jewish population, often referred to as the “[**Holocaust by bullets**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/einsatzgruppen),” were carried out by the so-called [**Einsatzgruppen**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/einsatzgruppen). These mobile killing units were responsible for systematically targeting Jewish communities, as well as other groups deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime, in occupied territories.
> Understanding the history and operations of these killing squads is crucial for comprehending how the **Holocaust** began and how it evolved from **mass shootings** into the larger, **industrialized genocide** that followed.
Their actions marked the grim transition from discrimination and persecution to organized, systematic extermination in Concentration- and Deathcamps such as [Auschwitz](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz) and [Sobibor](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor).
[ More on the Einsatzgruppen ](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/einsatzgruppen "Discover more about the Einsatzgruppen")
Mass shootings of innocent people in massacres
The [**Einsatzgruppen**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/einsatzgruppen) and their auxiliaries and collaborators perpetrated war crimes with mass shootings of Jews in the occupied territories in Eastern Europe. Around 2 million Jews were murdered in these mass shooting massacres also known as "Holocaust by Bullets'.
[ Explore these massacres ](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/massacres-and-atrocities "Discover the Nazi massacres of world war 2 ")
### The Final Solution
### Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942
> The meeting was held in Villa Marlier in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office or in German: Reichs Sicherheits Haupt Amt (RSHA), organizes the Wannsee Conference. The meeting, which lasted only 90 minutes, was attended by senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders.
### Purpose of the Wannsee Conference
The purpose of the **Wannsee conference**, was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final solution to the Jewish question. In other words, most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered.
### Who attended the Wannsee Conference
The following people participated in the meeting on the "Final Solution" of the Jewish question, held on 20 January 1942 at Am Grossen Wannsee 56-58 in Berlin.
### Representing the SS at the Wannsee Conference
### Reinhard Heydrich
SS Obergruppenführer
Chief of the Reich Security Main Office Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)
### Adolf Eichmann
SS Obersturmbannführer
Chief of the RSHA Department IV B 4 (Jewish Affairs)
### Heinrich Müller
SS Gruppenführer
Chief of RSHA Department IV (Gestapo)
### Eberhard Schöngarth
SS Oberführer
Commander of the RSHA field office for the Government General in Krakow, Poland
### Rudolf Lange
SS Sturmbannführer
Commander of RSHA Einsatzkommando 2, deployed in Latvia in the autumn of 1941
### Otto Hofmann
SS Gruppenführer
Chief of SS Race and Settlement Main Office
[](#)
[](#)
---
### Representing the agencies of the State at the Wannsee Conference
### Roland Freisler
Staatssekretär
Ministry of Justice
### Friedrich Kritzinger
Ministerialdirektor
Reich Cabinet
### Alfred Meyer
Gauleiter
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories German occupied Soviet Union.
### Georg Leibbrandt
Reichsamtleiter
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
### Martin Luther
Unterstaatssekretär
Foreign Office
### Wilhelm Stuckart
Staatssekretär
Ministry of the Interior
### Erich Neumann
Staatssekretär
Office of Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan
### Josef Bühler
Staatssekretär
Office of the Government of the Governor General German occupied Poland
### Gerhard Klopfer
SS Oberführer
Nazi Party Chancellery
[](#)
[](#)
---
In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be killed.
> Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the Nazi seizure of power by [**Adolf Hitler**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-adolf-hitler) on **30 January 1933**.
Violence and economic pressure were used by the Nazi regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country. After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the extermination of European Jewry began and the killings continued and accelerated after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
### Hermann Göring's authorisation for the Final Solution
On **31 July 1941**, [**Hermann Göring**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-hermann-goering), who was the highest-ranking member of the Nazi Party after Adolf Hitler, sent a letter to Reinhard Heydrich, who was the head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) and also would become one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. In the letter, Göring wrote that he had been instructed by Hitler to prepare a "[**Final Solution**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust#final)" to the "Jewish question" in Europe. He ordered Heydrich to submit a "**general plan**" outlining the administrative, material and financial measures necessary to carry out this task.
This letter is significant because it is one of the earliest known instances in which the Nazi leadership used the term "**Final Solution**" in reference to the genocide of European Jews. The letter also shows the high-level involvement of Nazi officials in the planning and execution of the Holocaust.
1942
 Protocol of the conference
20 January 1942
First page of the Wannsee Protocol marked “Secret Reich Matter.” Courtesy of the Museum and Educational Site-House of the Wannsee Conference
[](#js-4) 
A concentration camp work outfit. One of the sinister outcomes of the Wannsee Conference: to imprison and annihilate the Western European Jews.
---
 Page 6 of the protocol
20 January 1942
In retrospect
At the end of the meeting [**Heydrich**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-reinhard-heydrich) gave [**Eichmann**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-adolf-eichmann) instructions about what was to appear in the notes. They were not to be verbatim: Eichmann ensured that nothing too explicit appeared in them.
Adolf Eichmann
### Notes
In **March 1947 Robert Kempner**, the Chief Prosecutor in the Wilhelmstraßen Trial, received a collection of files from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the period of [**Joachim von Ribbentrop**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-joachim-von-ribbentrop). These files were of course in German and had to be translated into English. Among the documents was Martin Luther's copy of the top secret notes of the Wannsee conference.
> These notes, and their translation, were the first reports of this meeting to be released. There had only been 30 copies of the notes. All other copies were destroyed before the end of the war.
---
[ Question? Let me know ](https://www.normandy1944.info/contact)
### What was Operation Reinhard?
Operation Reinhard (also known as Aktion Reinhard or Einsatz Reinhard) was the codename for the Nazi plan to systematically exterminate the Jewish population living in the General Government, the area of occupied Poland where roughly two million Jews resided. To carry out this horrific objective, the Nazis established three extermination camps: Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka. These camps used carbon monoxide or engine exhaust as the killing method, Zyklon B was used at Auschwitz, but not here.
### Leader of Operation Reinhard
[**SS General Odilo Globočnik**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-odilo-globocnik) oversaw Operation Reinhard from autumn 1941 to late summer 1943 while serving as the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District of the General Government.
### Manpower for Operation Reinhard
The majority of German personnel assigned to the **Operation Reinhard** extermination camps were recruited from [**Aktion T4**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4), the Nazi regime’s first covert mass murder program, which targeted and killed institutionalized individuals with disabilities.
### Operation Reinhard in numbers
Between 1942 and 1943, these killing centers became the sites of mass murder, where approximately **1.5 million** Jews were brutally murdered. Beyond the camps, SS and police units also conducted numerous related operations, including the massive massacre known as **Operation Harvest Festival** on November 3–4, 1943, which targeted tens of thousands of Jews in the Lublin district.
> Altogether, personnel involved in **Operation Reinhard** were responsible for the deaths of about **1.7 million** Jews through these camps and accompanying mass shootings.
**Operation Reinhard** began in the autumn of 1941 and was later named in honor of [**SS General Reinhard Heydrich**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-reinhard-heydrich), one of the principal architects of the Holocaust. (This is still disputed by historians). Heydrich, who led the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) from September 1939 until his assassination in June 1942, was instrumental in organizing the deportation of European Jews to the killing centers in occupied Poland.
### End of the operation
The operation officially ended in late 1943. The Nazis attempted to destroy evidence, exhuming and burning bodies in what was called **Sonderaktion 1005**. Treblinka and [**Sobibor**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor) revolts in 1943 also disrupted operations and led to camp closures.
### Odilo Globočnik
---
At the end of the war [**SS General Odilo Globočnik** ](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-odilo-globocnik)who was in charge of **Operation Reinhard**, was located and apprehended by the **4th Queen's Own Hussars**, on **May 31, 1945, in Carinthia, Austria**. He was brought to Paternion in the Villach-Land District for interrogation but **took his own life by biting a cyanide capsule before questioning could begin**.
After the discovery of the massgrave of the Katyn massacre, the Nazis had to cover up their war crimes committed in Eastern Europe.
### What was the Katyn massacre?
After the sigining of the **Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact**, a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Eastern Europe between them. **On 17 September 1939**, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west starting World War 2. Immediately after the Soviet attack on eastern Poland, tens of thousands of Poles had been rounded up and taken to camps in Russia, along with fifteen thousand prisoners of war. With the arrest of the intellectual elite of the Polish population, [**Stalin**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-joseph-stalin) hoped to nip any opposition to communism in the bud. The Soviet attack on Poland that led to the Katyn massacre was part of an attempt by the Russians to restore the borders of 19th century Tsarist Russia.
> Katyn is a Russian village, which is located about 20 km west of the city of Smolensk.
[](#js-6) 
It was one of three locations where the **NKVD** **executed** a total of **approximately 25.700 Polish civilians, clergy and military personnel.** The mass graves were then planted with trees. The order for the assassination was given by the Central Committee, signed by Stalin. The order was the result of a decision by NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria to shoot more than 25.000 landlords, manufacturers, former officers, officials and defectors. The concentration camps in which the Poles had been imprisoned had to be liberated because of the arrival of 50.000 to 70.000 inhabitants of the Baltic states, many of whom would later also be murdered.
The massacre of Katyn took place in **April - May 1940**. **Around 4.443 Polish officers were murdered by the NKVD,** the secret service of the Soviet Union and predecessor of the **KGB**. The nearby forest was long used by the NKVD as an execution site.
> The murder of more than **25.000 Polish civilians, clergy and soldiers** was largely carried out in April - May 1940 by NKVD **General Vasili Blochin**. Blochin was decorated with the Order of the Red Banner later that year.
### Discovery of the Katyn massacre
**Until 1943 nothing was known about the fate of the arrested and POW Poles**. On April 13 of that year, the Germans found mass graves in Katyn containing about three thousand corpses with Polish identity papers. During later excavations, another 1.200 corpses were found. The free western countries received all kinds of reports of massacres taking place in occupied Europe. This forced the Nazis to find a way to hide the evidence for their war crimes. **SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel** was appointed head of **Sonderaktion 1005 in March 1942**.
> The operation only started in June, after the assassination attempt on [**Reinhard Heydrich**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-reinhard-heydrich), and started in the **Chelmno extermination camp**, where the bodies were burned after exhumation.
### Sonderaktion 1005
**Sonderaktion 1005**, also known as **Enterdungsaktion**, was the code name for the Nazis large-scale operation to destroy all evidence of the Holocaust during WW2. **The operation was started in June 1942 and lasted until the end of 1944.**
The work of **Aktion 1005** was mainly performed by prisoners. They were forced to open the mass graves and burn the bodies in large pyres. After all the bodies in that particular spot were burned, the site was leveled, plowed and planted. This was done to create the appearance that it was just a natural area. The prisoners who took part in Aktion 1005 were regularly murdered and replaced by other prisoners, in order to guarantee the secret nature of the operation. There are some known cases where prisoners tried to escape this fate, but those attempts were not successful.
In June 1943 the Germans also started burning bodies in the other parts of Poland and the Soviet Union. For this purpose, two special Sonderkommandos were created, consisting of prisoners. One Sonderkommando worked in the vicinity of **Berdichev** and **Zamosc**. In the Ukraine they cleared the graves of **camp Janovsk**a near **Lviv**. The other **Sonderkommando** worked in the regions around **Riga** and **Dvinsk**. **Sonderaktion 1005** also moved to areas in **Belarus** and the **Baltic** **States**, where bodies of Russian prisoners of war were burned.
> In mid-1944, the activities of **Sonderaktion 1005** mainly focused on the Government General in Poland. The operation soon moved to German-annexed areas of Poland as well. Operations also took place in Yugoslavia, including at **Jasenovac concentration camp.**
### Concentration and deathcamps in Europe
From **1933 to** **1945** the Nazi regime operated approximately [**27 main concentration camps and extermination (death) camps**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps), along with more than **1.000 satellite or subcamps** attached to them. In concentration- and death or extermination camps such as [**Auschwitz**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz), Bełżec, Chełmno, [**Majdanek**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/majdanek), [**Sobibór**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor) and Treblinka which were located in occupied Poland, the Nazi murdered on an industrial scale.
### Vasili M. Blochin
General
**Vasili Mikhailovich Blochin** born in Gavrilovo on **January 7, 1895** was a Russian major general of the **NKVD** who played an important role as an "executioner" in carrying out **Joseph Stalin**'s Red Terror. Also responsible for the **Katyn Massacre**. He died in Moscow on **February 3, 1955**.
### Paul Blobel
SS-Standartenführer
**Paul Blobel** born on 1**3 August 1894** in **Potsdam** Germany, was a Nazi commander of
- Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C
- Sonderaktion 1005
After the war he was sentenced to death by the US Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the Einsatzgruppen trial. **Up to 59,018 killings** are credited to Blobel, although he claimed to have killed **10,000 - 15,000** people. **He was hanged at Landsberg Prison shortly after midnight on June 7, 1951**.
[ More about the Einsatzgruppen ](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/einsatzgruppen)
Katyn Massacre and Sonderaktion 1005
### Holocaust Victims and Survivors
[ 
### Dario Gabbai
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/dario-gabbai)
[ 
### Nathan Wijnperle
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/nathan-wijnperle)
[ 
### Kate Mueller Slonim
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/kate-mueller-slonim)
[ 
### Ruth Rosa Luise Mühlmann
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/ruth-rosa-luise-muhlmann)
[ 
### Eva Umlauf Hecht
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/eva-hecht-umlauf)
[ 
### Hendrina Kalkoene - Swaab
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/hendrina-kalkoene-swaab)
[ 
### Hartog (Harry) Kalkoene
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/hartog-harry-kalkoene)
[ 
### Lotty (Charlotte) Veffer
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/lotty-charlotte-veffer)
[ 
### Jacqueline Turfkruyer
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/jacqueline-turfkruyer)
[ 
### The Wallig family (told by Frits Evenbly)
Read this story
](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/the-wallig-family-told-by-frits-evenbly)
[](#)
[](#)
### Why we remember
Behind every statistic was a person with a name, a family and a life. Visit our [**Holocaust Victims**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/victims) page to discover the stories of those who endured persecution, imprisonment and unimaginable loss and those who survived to bear witness for future generations.
[ Discover More Stories ](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/victims)
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More about this topic
[**The Arolsen Archives**](https://arolsen-archives.org/en/) - World’s most comprehensive archive on victims and survivors of Nazi persecution.
[**United States Holocaust Memorial Museum**](https://www.ushmm.org/) - USA's premier institution for documenting, studying, and interpreting Holocaust history