Bełżec (pronounced[ˈbɛu̯ʐɛt͡s], in German:Belzec) was the first of the NaziGermanextermination camps created for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, a key part of the "Final Solution" which entailed the murder of some 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. The camp operated from 000000001942-03-17-000017 March 1942 to the end of 000000001942-12-01-0000December 1942. It was situated about 0.5km (0.31mi) south of the local railroad station of Bełżec in German-occupied Poland, in the new Distrikt Lublin of the semi-colonial General Government territory. The burning of exhumed corpses on five open-air grids and bone crushing continued until March 1943.
Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered by the German SS at Bełżec, along with an unknown number of Christian Poles and Romani people. Only seven Jews performing slave labour with the camp's Sonderkommando survived World WarII; and only one of them, became known from his own postwar testimony submitted officially. The lack of viable witnesses who could testify about the camp's operation is the primary reason why Bełżec is so little known despite the enormous number of victims.
The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities built exclusively for that purpose was a result of earlier Nazi experimentation with the chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive Action T4 euthanasia programme against German mentally and physically disabled. The technology was adapted, expanded and applied in wartime to unsuspecting victims of many ethnic and national groups; the Jews however were the primary targets accounting for over 90 percent of the extermination camp death toll. This genocide of the Jewish people of Europe was the Third Reich's "Final Solution to the Jewish question". It is now collectively known as the Holocaust.
Extermination camps were also set up by the fascistUstaše regime of the Independent State of Croatia allied with Germany, carrying out genocidal policy between 1941 and 1945 against Serbs, Jews, Roma and its political opponents.
The Nazis' concentration and extermination camps ... camp ... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
These include massacres like the mass shooting of orphaned babies at Bila Tserkva in Ukraine in August 1941; or sites like the Belzec extermination camp, where only two out of 500,000 victims survived and gave testimony after the war.
The Nazis' concentration and extermination camps ... camp ... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
We know that biting dark humor was used by the camps’ condemned inmates as a survival mechanism in a universe turned upside down ...Belzec is the last of the six major extermination camps on Polish soil to be properly maintained.
The Nazis' concentration and extermination camps ... a labour camp ... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
It was the precursor to the more efficient, hyper-intense, industrial scale killing of Jews between 1942 and 1945 at six “extermination camps” in Nazi occupied Poland, (i.e ... and extermination centers.
The Nazis' concentration and extermination camps ... Exterminations ... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
... camps ... In 2010, Gudrun's organisation paid for the defence of Samuel Kunz, an SS man charged with complicity in the murders of 437,000Jews in Belzec extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration and extermination camp used by the Nazis during World War Two... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
... camp next door ... The Nazis' concentration and extermination camps ... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration and extermination camp used by the Nazis during World War Two... This would place Sobibor as the fourth worst extermination camp - in terms of number of deaths - after Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
... on the fact that certain camps, such as Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, were for extermination only, unlike others, such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, thereby making everyone working there complicit.
Sun Sentinel
12 Sep 2024
Sun Sentinel
12 Sep 2024