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
changeAs 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
changeThe 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
changeOnly 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- Elsa Binder (c. 1920 – c. 1942), a Polish-born Jewish diarist, may have lived and died at Bełżec
Related pages
changeReferences
change- ↑ 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.
