Bełżec

Bełżec

Polish death camp

Table of Contents

• Operations

• Staff

• Death toll

• Clean up

• Bełżec Memorial

• Bibliography

Operations• This camp consisted of two sub camps, Camp I

which included the barracks of the Ukraine, the workshops and barracks of the Jews and the reception area with two undressing barracks.

• Camp II contained the gas chambers and mass graves

• The two camps were connected by a narrow corridor called “Der Schlauch” or “Tube” (Bottom left)

• The three gas chambers were started up on March 17th 1942, Its first victims were Jews deported from Lublin and Lwow. But the gas chambers broke down a lot so normally only one or two were running. And they were shutdown in December 1942 as the Aucshwitz chambers were much more efficient.

Staff

• The Commandant was Christian Wirth• The guards were mostly German and former

Soviet Union prisoners of war.• Only seven of the SS from Bełżec were indicted

in Munich and of that seven only Josef Oberhauser was brought to trial in 1965 and was sentenced four years and six months in prison, but was released about half way through his sentence

Death Toll

• There is documentation that 434,508 Jews were killed in 1942 but the estimated amount prior was 550,000 to 600,000

• The camp was also estimated to hold up to one million bodies by an investigater

Clean Up

• The last train that was to be sent here left from Germany in June 1943 but instead went to Sobibor for gassing

• The closing was part of a plan called “Sonderaktion 1005” after all the bodies were cremated and pulverized the German and Ukraine workers dismantled all but Wirth's house and the neighboring SS building

• Any equipment that could be re used was sent to Majdanek concentration camp

• The Nazis tried to hide this camp by planting firs and wild lupines

Bełżec MemorialPost war, since the Nazis tried to erase this camp most of the buildings had disappeared but the mass graves of the victims remained. From shortly after the war to the late 1950s some people disturbed these graves to look for valuables. In 1960 the former camp was fenced off and some small monuments placed on site. Until 1988 it was largely forgotten and poorly maintained because of its remote spot at the edge of Poland. When the collapse of Communism happened in 1989 this changed and it slowly became more visited. In the late 1990s they began to investigate what went on there and in 2004 a large new monument was built.

Bibliography

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_extermination_camp