Chelmno/Kulmhof was set up at the instigation of Reichsstatthalter Greiser of the »Warthegau« (northern Poland) in November 1941, by the »Sonderkommando Lange« (task force Lange) which participated in the murder of the mentally ill within the framework of the »T4«-program. The camp consisted of the commander's mansion near Chelmno village, and of the »forest camp« five kilometres away. The jewish victims who came mostly from the »Warthegau« were taken by lorries to the commander's mansions where they had to hand in their clothes and valuables. Then they were driven into a »gasvan« and then suffocated by exhaust fumes fed into the interior. The corpses were searched once again for valuables in the »forest camp«, and then buried, and later burnt.

By the end of 1942 the majority of the Jews from the »Warthegau« had been murdered, so that camp activity from then on until the demolition of the camp in March 1943 concentrated on exhuming and burning the corpses. When the ghetto in Lodz/Litzmannstadt was finally wound up, Chelmno camp functioned again for three weeks in 1944.

Chelmno extermination centre served among other things for the murder of Jews deported to Lodz ghetto. The overcrowding of the ghetto through constantly arriving transports had been one of the reasons for the setting up of the Chelmno camp. Between January and September 1942, more then 71,000 people were deported from Lodz to Chelmno, including, in October and November 1941, Jews who had been deported there from Austria.

Based on available documents the Assize Court in Bonn stated in 1962/63 that the number of people murdered in Chelmno must have been at least 152,000. How many of the victims came from Austria cannot be established at the present state of research.