Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: The Gas Chambers of Belzec Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Belzec,Chelmno,Eichmann,gas,Wirth Archive/File: holocaust/poland/reinhard/belzec belzec.gas Last-modified: 1993/03/05 "Before coming to Belzec, Wirth <*> became acquainted with the gas vans in operation in Chelmno and ... learned their advantages and disadvantages. This experience in euthanasia, where permanent gas chambers had existed, and with the gas vans inspired his solution. He decided to combine in Belzec the permanent gas chamber with the internal combustion car engine as gas supplier. Wirth objected to the bottles of carbon monoxide gas that had been used in euthanasia institutions. The bottles, which were produced in private factories and which would be supplied to Belzec in large quantities, could arouse suspicion. ... Wirth preferred to set up a self-contained extermination system, based on an ordinary car engine and easily available gasoline and not dependent on supply by outside factors." <1> (For a lengthy description of the construction process, see Arad, p25) "Adolf Eichmann, who visited Belzec. at that time and saw the gas chambers, wrote: ...at the turn of the year 1941/42, the chief of the Security Police and SD Heydrich told me ... "I come from the Reichsfuhrer; the Fuhrer has now ordered the physical extermination of the Jews." He informed me further that the Reichsfuhrer had instructed Globocnik, the SS and Police Leader of Lublin, to use the Soviet antitank ditches for the mass annihilation of the Jews. I myself should travel there and submit to him a report about the implementation of the operation.... I traveled in the direction of Lublin; I don't know what the place is called. A Hauptsturmfuhrer accompanied me. I met there a Hauptmann of the Order Police [Wirth]. I expressed astonishment that the small house, completely secluded, was built, and he told me: "Here the Jews are being gassed now." <2> "With the beginning of the deportations from Cracow district and the deportations from the Lvov and Lublin districts, it was clear to Wirth that the three wooden gas chambers in Belzec would no longer be sufficient to hold the increased numbers of Jews arriving in the transports. New, larger gas chambers would have to be built. To facilitate construction, the deportations to Belzec were stopped temporarily in the middle of June 1942. ... The first stage of the Belzec operation was terminated. ...about 93,000 Jews had been murdered in Belzec." <3> <1> Nuremberg Documents, PS-1553, statement by Gerstein; Raul Hilberg, pp. 571-572 (The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago, 1967) <2> "Ich, Adolf Eichmann, Ein Historischer Zeugenbericht" Leoni am Starnberger See, 1980, pp. 178-179. <3> BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA p73 Excerpted from....---------------------------------------------- BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7 ---------------------------------------------------------------- <*> Christian Wirth was killed by partisans, near Trieste, in May of 1944. Individual files are now available via listserv. Send your request to: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca, and include the single word 'index' for a list of available articles.
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