Belzec Concentration Camp
Belzec Concentration Camp, located near Zaklikow
Somewhere between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews died at Belzec extermination camp. The camp was located in the Lublin District of Poland near the major city of Lwow, between the large Jewish populations of southeast Poland and eastern Galicia. A nearby train station provided easy transportation from the cities to the extermination camp. There was also a ditch nearby that the Nazis forced Jews to dig. Historians believe the ditch was the site of one of the first mass murder and burial sites of the Holocaust.
The commanders of the camp were SS Colonel General Christian Wirth and Gottlieb Hering, who had both been involved with the T-4 program, a Nazi program responsible for the murder of disabled people. The Belzec camp used gas chambers as the primary method of killing Jews. The Nazis disguised the gas chambers as showers and barracks, and forced the Jews to run straight form the train to the chambers, so they didn’t have time to plan a revolt.
In late June 1943, the Nazis transported a final train of 300 Jewish prisoners to the camp to be gassed. This served as the camp’s closing act. They then dug up and cremated all of the bodies. Very few people survived Belzec camp. As a result, we don’t know as much about the camp as about other extermination camps.
The commanders of the camp were SS Colonel General Christian Wirth and Gottlieb Hering, who had both been involved with the T-4 program, a Nazi program responsible for the murder of disabled people. The Belzec camp used gas chambers as the primary method of killing Jews. The Nazis disguised the gas chambers as showers and barracks, and forced the Jews to run straight form the train to the chambers, so they didn’t have time to plan a revolt.
In late June 1943, the Nazis transported a final train of 300 Jewish prisoners to the camp to be gassed. This served as the camp’s closing act. They then dug up and cremated all of the bodies. Very few people survived Belzec camp. As a result, we don’t know as much about the camp as about other extermination camps.
