Selection (Holocaust)

Selection (German: Selektion) was the process of designating inmates either for murder or forced labor at a Nazi concentration camp.

This empire never materialized as SS chief Heinrich Himmler had fantasized, but some of its building blocks, including Majdanek, were put in place.

The Aktion Reinhard extermination camps, such as Belzec, Chełmno, Sobibor and Treblinka, had essentially no selection, as all transported prisoners were murdered within hours of arriving.

Selection began with Aktion 14f13, the murder of prisoners who were too sick or weak for forced labor, and were considered a burden to the state.

Near the train, as the victims were being separated into two distinct groups, there stood one SS officer dressed in a neatly pressed uniform.