Operation Reinhard The Construction of the Belzec Extermination Camp
Belzec, a small town in the southeast of the district of Lublin,
close to the border of the district of Lvov and on the Lublin-Zamosc-Rawa Ruska-Lvov railroad line, was selected as the locality
for the first extermination camp. The area specified for the camp
was a railroad siding half a kilometer from the Belzec railroad
station.
The Pole Stanislaw Kozak described the beginning of its construction:
In the second half of December, Christian Wirth was appointed Camp
Commandant of Belzec, with Josef Oberhauser as his adjutant.
SS-Scharführer Erich Fuchs reported on Wirth's arrival in Belzec:
Wirth told us that in Belzec "all Jews were to be bumped off. "
For this purpose the huts were fitted out as gas chambers. I
installed shower nozzles in the gas chambers. The nozzles were
not connected to a water pipe because they were only meant to
serve as camouflage for the gas chambers. The Jews who were to be
gassed were untruthfully informed that they were to be bathed and
disinfected. (StA Dortmund AZ: 45Js 27-61 <AZ. ZSL: 208 AR-Z
251/59, vol. 9, pp. 1782f>)
Wirth developed his own ideas on the basis of the experience he had
gained in the "Euthanasia" program. Thus, in Belzec he decided to
supply the fixed gas chamber with gas produced by the
internal-combustion engine of a motorcar. Wirth rejected Cyanide B
which was later used at Auschwitz. This gas was produced by private
firms and its extensive use in Belzec might have aroused suspicion
and led to problems of supply. He therefore preferred a system of
extermination based on ordinary, universally available gasoline and
diesel fuel.
At the end of Febraury 1942 the installations for mass extermination
were completed. The first two or three transports, each consisting
of four to six freight cars fully loaded with a hundred or more Jews,
were used for trial killings in order to test the capacity and
efficiency of the gas chambers and the technique of the extermination
process. The tests lasted several days. The last group to be killed
consisted of the Jewish prisoners who had taken part in building the
camp. (See note 6 <vol. IX, pp 1681 ff>)
Bottled carbon monoxide was used for these experiments. However, a
short while later the gassings were carried out with carbon monoxide
from the exhaust fumes a of motorcar engine. The engine from an
armored vehicle ("250 h.p.") was installed in a shed outside the gas
chamber, whence the gas was piped into the gas chamber. Wirth
continued to experiment in his search for the most effective method
of handling the transports of Jews, from their arrival at the camp to
their extermination and the subsequent removal of the corpses.
Everything was arranged in such a way that the victims should remain
unaware of their impending doom. The intention was to convey to them
the impression that they had arrived at a work or transit camp from
which they would be sent on to another camp.
In addition, everything was to proceed at top speed so that the
victims would have no chance to grasp what was going on. Their
reactions were to be paralyzed to prevent escape attempts or acts of
resistance.
The speedy process was to increase the camp's extermination capacity.
In this way, several transports could be received and liquidated on
one and the same day.
The entire camp covered a relatively small, flat, rectangular area.
Its southern side measured 265 m., the other sides ca. 275 m. It
was surrounded by a high wire fence, with barbed wire attached at the
top and camouflaged with branches. Young trees were pianted along
the fence so that no one would be able to look into the camp from the
outside. There were three watchtowers in the corners, two of them on
the eastern perimeter and the third on the southwestern one. There
was an additional watch tower in the center of the camp, near the gas
chambers. A railroad track some 500 m. in length led from the
Belzec railroad station into the camp through the gate on its
northern side. The southern and eastern boundaries were lined with
conifers.
Belzec was divided into two areas. Camp I, in the northwest, was the
reception and administrative sector; Camp II, in the eastern section,
was the extermination sector.
The reception sector comprised the railroad ramp, which had room for
twenty freight cars, and two huts for the arrivals -- one for
undressing and the other for storing clothes and baggage. Camp II,
the extermination sector, comprised the gas chambers and the mass
graves which were located in the eastern and northeastern part. The
gas chambers were surrounded by trees and a camouflage net was spread
over their roof to prevent observation from the air. There were also
two huts in this sector for the Jewish prisoners working here: one
served as their living quarters, the other as the kitchen. Camp II
was completely separated from the other sector by a strictly guarded
gate.
A low path, 2 m. wide and 50-70m. Iong, known as the "tube," fenced
in on both sides with barbed wire and partly partitioned off by a
wooden fence, connected the hut in Camp I where the arrivals
undressed with the gas chambers in Camp II. The living quarters of
the SS-men were at a distance of ca. 500 m. from the camp, near the
Belzec railroad station. All the SS-men were employed in the camp
administration. Each SS- man had his specific job and some of them
were assigned more than one task. From time to time there was an
exchange in the spheres of responsibility. (Ibid., vol. VII, pp.
1288,1384; vol VIII, p. 1465)
SS-Oberscharführer Gottfried Schwarz was the Deputy Camp Commandant,
SS-Oberscharführer Niemann was in charge of the extermination sector
of Camp II, and SS-Oberscharführer Josef Oberhauser, Wirth's
adjutant, held responsibility for the con- struction of the camp.
SS-Oberscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt, together with two Ukrainians
working under him, was respon- sible for the operation of the gas
chambers.
The Ukrainian unit numbered 60-80 men, divided into two groups. The
Ukrainians served as security guards inside the camp, at the entrance
gate, and on the four watch towers; they also carried out several
patrols. Some of them assisted in operat- ing the gas chambers.
Before the arrival of a transport, the Ukrainians were deployed as
guards around the ramp, at the hut for undressing and along the
"tube," as iar as the gas chambers. During the experimental killings
they had to remove the corpses from the gas chambers and bury them.
Later on,Jewish prisoners were forced to do this work.
[
Previous |
Index |
Next ]
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.
The Extermination
Camps
of
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
In October of the year 1941 three SS-men came to Belzec and
demanded 20 men for the work from the municipal administrauon.
The local council chose 20 workers from among the inhabitants of
Belzec, and I was one of them. The Germans selected the terrain
to the southeast of the railroad station, which adjoined a siding.
The railway line to Lvov runs along this sidetrack. We began to
work on November 1,1941, with the construction of huts on the plot
adjoining the siding. One of the huts which stood right next to
the siding was 50 m. Iong and 12.5 m. wide. The second hut,
which was 25 m. Iong and 12.5 m. wide, was intended for the Jews
who went to the baths. Next to this hut we built a third hut,
which was 12 m. long and 8 m. wide. This hut was divided into
three sections by wooden walls, so that each section was 4 m.
wide and 8 m. Iong. These sections were 2 m. high. The
interior walls of these huts were built such that we nailed the
boards to them, filling in the empty space with sand. Inside the
hut the walls were covered with cardboard; in addition the floors
and the walls, to a height of 1.10 m. [were covered] with sheet-
zinc. A 3 m. broad avenue, fenced in with barbed wire, which was
also 3 m. high, led from the first to the second of the
above-mentioned huts. A part of this fence, facing the siding and
beyond it, was covered with pines and firs which had been
specially felled, in order to conceal the siding. From the second
hut a covered passage, ca. 2m. wide, 2 m. high, and ca. 10 m.
Iong, led to the third hut. By way of this passage one reached
the passage of the third hut, from which three doors led to its
three sections. Each section of this hut had a door on its
northern side, approximately 1.80 m. high and 1.10 m. wide.
These doors, like the doors to the passage, were closely fitted
with rubber. All the doors in this hut opened toward the outside.
The doors were very strongly built of three-inch thick planks and
were secured against pressure from inside by a wooden bolt that
was pushed inside two iron hooks specially fitted for this
purpose. In each of the three sections of this hut water pipes
were fixed at a height of 10 cm. from the floor. In addition, on
the western wall of each section of this hut water pipes branched
off at an angle to a height of 1 m. from the floor, ending in an
opening directed toward the middle of the hut. The elbow-plpes
were connected to pipes which ran along the walls and under the
floor... The trench has been dug by 70 "blacks," that is to say,
by former Soviet soldiers who worked with the Germans. It was 6
m. deep, 20 m. wide, and 50 m. long. This was the first ditch
in which the Jews, killed in the extermination camp, were buried.
The "blacks" dug this ditch in six weeks, at the time when we
built the huts. This ditch was later continued as far as the
middle of the northern border. That was already at a time when we
no longer worked on building the huts. The first hut which I
mentioned was at a distance of approximately 20 m. from the
siding and 100 m. from the southern border. At that time when we
Poles were building the huts, the "blacks" put up the fence around
the extermination camp; it consisted of posts with closely spaced
barbed wire. After we had built the three huts described above,
the Germans dismissed us Poles from work on December 22, 1941.
(StA Munich 1, AZ:32Js 64-83-61 <AZ. ZSL AR-Z 252/59, vol. VI,
p. 1179>.)
One day in the winter of 1941, Wirth put together a transport to
Poland. I was selected along with ca. eight to ten others and
transferred to Belzec in three motorcars... Upon our arrival in
Belzec we met Friedel Schwarz and two other SS-men whose names I
do not remember. They served as guards during the building of a
hut which we were to fit out as a gas chamber.