Belzec
| Bełżec | |
|---|---|
| Extermination camp | |
Belzec extermination camp memorial
  Location of Bełżec (lower centre) on the map of German extermination camps marked with black and white skulls. Poland's borders before World War II. Demarcation line, red |
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| Coordinates | 50°22′18″N 23°27′27″E / 50.37167°N 23.45750°ECoordinates: 50°22′18″N 23°27′27″E / 50.37167°N 23.45750°E |
| Known for | Annihilation of Europe's Jews in the Holocaust |
| Location | Near Bełżec, General Government (German-occupied Poland) |
| Built by |
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| Operated by | SS-Totenkopfverbände |
| Commandant |
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| Original use | Extermination camp |
| First built | 1 November 1941 – March 1942 |
| Operational | 17 March 1942 – end of June 1943 |
| Number of gas chambers | 3 (later 6) |
| Inmates | Polish, German, and Austrian Jews |
| Killed | Est. 434,508–600,000 |
| Liberated by | Closed before end of war |
| Notable inmates | Rudolf Reder, Chaim Hirszman, Mina Astman, Sara Beer, Salomea Beer, Jozef Sand |
Bełżec (pronounced [ˈbɛu̯ʐɛt͡s], in German: Belzec) was a Nazi German extermination camp created for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to eliminate Polish Jewry, a key part of the "Final Solution" which entailed the murder of some 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The camp operated from 17 March 1942 to the end of December 1942. It was situated about 0.5 km (0.31 mi) south of the local railroad station of Bełżec in German-occupied Poland, in the new Distrikt Lublin of the semi-colonial General Government territory. The burning of exhumed corpses on five open-air grids and bone crushing continued until March 1943.
Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec. Only seven Jews performing slave labour with the camp's Sonderkommando survived World War II; and only one of them, became known from his own postwar testimony submitted officially. The lack of viable witnesses who could testify about the camp's operation is the primary reason why Bełżec is so little known despite the enormous number of victims.
The village of Bełżec, in the interwar period, was situated between the two major Polish cities in southeastern Poland with the largest Jewish population locally, including Lublin 76 kilometres (47 mi) northwest of Bełżec, and the city of Lwów southeast (German: Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine). In accordance with the German-Soviet Pact against Poland Bełżec fell within the German zone of occupation following the Soviet invasion of 1939. Originally, the Jewish forced labor was brought into the area in April 1940 for the construction of military defense facilities of the German strategic plan codenamed Operation Otto against the Soviet advance beyond their common frontier.
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Wikipedia