Bełżec extermination camp
Bełżec (pronounced [ˈbɛu̯ʐɛt͡s], in German: Belzec), was a Nazi extermination camp (a death camp) during the Holocaust. It operated during World War II, from 17 March 1942 to the end of December 1942.[1]
In those eight months, around 450,000 Jews were murdered at the camp by the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Nazis' paramilitary organization.[1][2] The SS also killed an unknown number of Christian Poles and Roma people at Bełżec.[1][3]
Bełżec was the first Nazi camp that used permanent gas chambers to kill prisoners.[4]
History
[change | change source]As part of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution", the Nazis made plans to kill every one of Europe's 11 million Jews.[5] In 1941 they created the first death camp at Chelmno in Poland. It was a killing center designed to mass-murder Jews.[4]
Then, in 1942, the Nazis launched Operation Reinhard. This was a plan to kill every Jew in the General Government (a part of German-occupied Poland) - around 2 million people.[2] The plan called for three more killing centers to be built. Bełżec was the first new death camp the Nazis built.[6]
Location
[change | change source]The camp was located in the village of Bełżec in German-occupied Poland. It was about 0.5 km (0.31 mi) south of the local railroad station, which made it easy to transport large numbers of deported Jews there.
Legacy
[change | change source]Only seven Jews who worked as slave laborers in Bełżec's Sonderkommando survived World War II. Just one of them submitted postwar testimony officially.[7]
Because there are so few witnesses who can testify about the camp's operation, very little is known about Bełżec.[7]
Notable people
[change | change source]- Elsa Binder (c. 1920 – c. 1942), a Polish-born Jewish diarist, may have lived and died at Bełżec
Related pages
[change | change source]- Extermination camps
- Nazi concentration camps
- Nazi Germany
- The Final Solution
- The Holocaust
- Antisemitism
References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Belzec". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Camp History". Museum and Memorial in Belzec. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
- ↑ "Belzec Death Camp Memorial, Poland". Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies: University of Minnesota. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Holocaust Encyclopedia. "Killing Centers: In Depth". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
- ↑ Michael Bryant, Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2014), pp. 1—4
- ↑ Arad, Yitsḥaḳ (1988). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: the Operation Reinhard Death Camps (3rd ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34293-5.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Belzec Death Camp: Remember Me". Alphabetical Listing. Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. 2007. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
