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The Chelmno Death Camp
Immediately after the war, the provisional Polish government created the Central
Commision for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, whose main task was
to establish what had happened and prepare the evidence for the Nuremberg trial
and for subsequent trials of German war criminals in Poland. The Commission
collected documents and testimonies and began to publish them in 1946. The main
report, published under the title German Crimes in Poland, gave the first
general overview of the main concentration and extermination camps.
Little has been published on Chelmno (Kulmhof, in German) despite its significance as the first
operational extermination camp, most likely because the Nazis managed to destroy
most of the evidence about its existence. The Commission's report remains one of
the most thorough accounts.
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