Belzec opened on March 17,1942. Located southeast of Warsaw, it lay within a few meters of the main railroad. It was never built as
a camp, but a killing center to exterminate the Jews of southeastern Poland. Virtually, all its victims were Jews with the exception of
1,200 Poles.
Belzec consisted of ten wooden barracks and one wooden building. The camp included a guard house, a staff barracks, a large yard,
and the extermination center. Inside the extermination center, six carbon monoxide chambers would gas at most about 10,000
victims a day, which accumulated into the 600,000 death toll at the end. Open-pit burning was the primary disposal method because
there was no crematorium. It was also obvious that no crematorium could ever handle so many dead bodies.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. |
Whenever the gas facilities broke down, a unique process would be used in the place of gas chambers. The Nazis crammed the
deportees, who had been standing in the open without food for days, into the train cars. The floors had been covered with lime that
suffocated all the victims. 120 to 130 Jews were jammed into freight cars that may carry 40 soldiers or 8 horses. The policeman
slammed the doors across the arms and legs that stick out. The lime was an efficient and inexpensive preventative against the
spreading of disease.
Ended its killing days in late November 1942, Belzec was left with only Jews for the dstruction of the mass grave. After one and half
years of murdering, in fall 1943 the authorities removed all traces of their immoral deeds. However, a year later, the heaving ground
forced the Germans to reopen the mass graves and burn the corpses with gasoline. They ground the bones to ashes and distributed
it over neighboring fields.
|
|
