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Belzec
Belzec was a death camp in the strictest sense of the
term. It had
essentially no features of a concentration camp, but was
used instead
exclusively for the purposes of extermination. Established
on the
eastern fringe of the Generalgouvernement, near the village
of Belzec in
the forest along the road and railway line from Lublin and
Zamosc to
Lwow. The camp existed only a short time-from March to
December 1942.
During those ten months, however, the Nazis killed over
600,000 people
there. These were almost exclusively Jews, but also Roma and
Poles who
had been helping Jews.
Very few direct sources exist, and most of these are the
rare
testimonies of witnesses in the area, aerial photographs and
just one
survivor testimony. After the war, excavations were carried
out at the
site of the former camp, followed by more recent excavations
in
1997-1999. The camp had barracks for Nazi functionaries
(Germans and
Ukrainians) as well as barracks for a small number of
prisoners who were
working for the extermination machine and six gas chambers,
where
people were killed with exhaust fumes. In the beginning, the
bodies were
buried, but the large number of victims forced the Nazis to
burn the
corpses.
From the fragments of the camp that remain today, the
transcribed
witness testimonies and architectural details, one can
conclude that the
process of extermination there was not unlike that occurring
at similar
sites. The prisoners were brought to a ramp that was
constructed at the
siding leading from the main Lublin-Lwow rail line. Then,
the victims'
baggage was taken and they were herded to the changing room,
and then to
the gas chambers.
In 1943, the Germans dismantled the camp and planted a
forest in its
place. In 1944, a detachment of the Home Army took the area
around
Belzec and held it until the Red Army arrived.
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After the war, although a memorial was
erected at the site, the infrastructure supporting such
commemorative
activities soon disintegrated. Moreoever, the plaques dating
back to
the communist period contain erroneous information. Part of
the camp
remains unfenced.
For these and other reasons, a decision was made to
renew efforts to
commemorate the camp at Belzec. In 1997, as the result of
cooperation
between an organization committed to preserving the memory
of past
victims of wars and persecution (Rada Ochrony Pamieci Walk i
Meczenstwa)
and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, a jury was
formed to
select the design of the new memorial. The necessary
excavations were
carried out before actual construction work began. The
American Jewish
Committee was also involved on the American side. The new
memorial
consists of one enormous slab with a crack in it, through
which the
visitors pass. At the end of the crack is a wall with the
names of the
people who were killed there.
Information
There are rail connections to Zamosc, Krakow and
Wroclaw, and bus connections to Przemysl and Lublin.
Today, Belzec is a small town having with just over
three thousand
residents. There is a wooden Orthodox church there dating
back to the
nineteenth century, which has some elements from the
eighteenth century.
The town has not much in the way of shops or restaurants.
The nearest
town with such amenities is Tomaszow Lubelski, which is five
kilometers
away. The town of Narol is less than twenty kilometers from
Belzec, and
has an eighteenth century palace that serves as a conference
center and
is in the process of being renovated.
The closest functioning Jewish Community is the branch
of the Warsaw
Community located in Lublin. Even closer, just on the other
side of the
border, are the Jews of Lwow (about ninety kilometers).
(pc/cm)
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