BELZEC Extermination Camp part 6

CLOSURE OF THE CAMP
Until mid-December 1942 transports still arrived in Belzec. The exact date of the last arrivals is not known. Probably it was a consignment of about 5,000 people from Rawa Ruska, who was cleared on 11 December 1942. Why the National Socialists stopped the transports to Belzec in December 1942 has never been established. At this time there were still many Jews in ghettos and forced labour camps in the districts of Galiuzien, Krakau and Lublin. From 5 to 7 January 1943, the Lemberg ghetto held at that time appropriately 10,000 Jews who were due for another "Aktion" instead: One part was deported to the Sobibor extermination camp, the others killed in the ghetto. The only rail connection from Lemberg to Sobibor was through Belsec, so that all transports went through the village first. The camp was closed by that date. On the camp grounds, the SS executed Jews who had jumped out of the passing transports. Eustachy Ukrainski, then an inhabitants of Belzec, recalls:.. "After ending the cremations in Belzec of the dead,  transports with naked Jews went through the train-station of Belzec They came from the direction of Rawa Rustka and went to Sobibor. It often happened that some naked Jews jumped from these trains to escape.They were caught, taken to the former camp and buried there after being shot.
A possible reason for the closure of the camp could be that Belzec was intended as a holding centre for transports from Romania. In Sommer1942 the Government of Germany and Romania had negotiated and agreed the deportation of 200,000 Jews from the Altreich, the "Regat" . These should have been  accommodated at Belzec, a precise timetable had been drawn up. However, the Romanian government as from September 1942 did not meet the agreed transportation of Jews.
 Another reason for the termination of transports to Belzec was the lack of space for more mass graves in the camp area. Belzec was one of the smallest extermination camps of "Aktion Reinhardt" by area. The whole camp was over seven hectares, the camp zone II with the gas chambers and the burial grounds took a little over four hectares. On this site had also 33 mass graves in late 1942 with hundreds of thousands dead. (104) There was no possible way to increase the camp. In the South it was bounded by the ramp and the railway line. In the West at a distance of 150-200 meters, were the first residential buildings. In the North it bordered on high and steep slopes of the  Kozelsk-Hill. A little more space was to the East, but there was also slopes and swampy forests which made the site unsuitable and furthermore the village of Lubycza Krolewska was not far away. Maybe the contributing and unresolved question of what should happen with the thousand of additional dead bodies, to close at Belzec, was the main reason.
Ref :104-33 mass graves reported by Rudolf Reder, page 68 This has been confirmed by archaeological work in the years 1997-2000, see: Andrzej Kola, Belzec. The Nazi Camp for Jews in the Light of Archaeological Sources.Excavations 1997-1999, Warsaw /Washington, 2000, page 37[this claim is disputed by other writers and historians, see Thomas Kues:  http://www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrtkreder.html

Reder’s map of Belzec, as reproduced by A. Kola.

[Reders Map is claimed to be by most Historians and Researchers inaccurate and in parts outright false, yet it was used as evidence during some trials. From Luftwaffe air photographs of the by then liquidated camp taken in 1944 we are able to make out the approximate dimensions of the camp: it had the shape of an irregular rectangle measuring roughly 250 x 300 meters, with a large part of it apparently still covered by trees during the camp’s period of operation. The courtyard described by Reder is thus almost four times as large as the camp’s entire area! sic.]

Portion of a Polish map of the Tomaszow-Lubelski area, drawn in 1937. The approximate perimeter of the future camp has been marked in red, courtesy Thomas Kues

INCINERATION OF THE DEAD
From mid-December 1942 to March 1943 corpses were exhumed on the former grounds of the camp and burned. In addition to the first funeral pyre, which was burning since November 1942,  probably another two more were built which could also burn 2,000 bodies per day. The responsibility for the exhumation of the dead was that of the Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando and the Trawniki men. The fire burned for three months, day and night and poisoned with the stench the environment by dozens of Kilometres away. In the settlement of Tomaszow Lubelski-the smell was so strong  that the people there at that time used handkerchiefs soaked in eau de cologne held against their noses when venturing outside.(105) [eau de cologne (4711) was hardly available in Germany, but in remote Poland, an unlikely story sic.] In Rawa Ruska,which was 14 Kilometres away from Belzec, at night time you could see the glow of the bonfire. Also, depending on the weather conditions the stench of burnt corpses in Belzec was evident, sometimes the wind drove even human hair into their direction (106). Stanislaw Kozak, who was involved in the construction of the first barracks at Belzec, recalls: "At the end of autumn they did not bring any more Jews to Belzec. Then they brought in large cranes into the death camp to take out the buried human bodies of the murdered Jews out of the pits. The broken corpses were piled on a pyre and they doused them with a liquid. Two or three fires burned simultaneously. Belzec was at this time a place of a terrible smell of rotting corpses, and burnt human remains. The stench and smell was terrible and this was 15 Kilometres away. The cremation lasted for three months without a break".(107)
Ref :105-Statement Wladyslawa G. 17/12/1959 in BArch Ludwigsburg, B 162/208 Vol.3 page 404
Ref: 107- Testimony of Stanislaw Kozak, in APMM, photocopies, Sign 1284, OKBL, Ds. 1604/45
Bones that had not completely incinerated were ground with a bone mill, [this looked like a concrete mixer and had ball bearings inside and crushed the bones.sic] which the Germans had received  from the labour camp at Janowska Sraße in Lemberg. To this end, they also confiscated small flour mills from prosperous farmers around Belzec and environment.
In late February / early March 1943, there was a mass escape of Trawniki men from the camp. A group of 15 guards, led by Ivan Woloszyn fled from their barracks and took weapons and ammunition with them. The group joined a Soviet partisan unit that operated in the vicinity. In  response to the escape, and set an example [this was a typical measure of the SS.sic] the Germans shot 17 "askaris" who most likely were completely innocent. The other, most of whom had served right from  the beginning at Belzec, were sent back to the SS training camp of Trawniki, only the leaders remained. In their place came a new group of security guards which was made up mainly of Ukrainians from the district of Galicia, who were especially loyal towards the Germans and readily accepted the national socialistic dogma. Earlier on, there had been other desertions from Belzec. In the summer of 1942  six security guards who had just come to Belzec made an attempt to flee after a week of service duties. They probably had informed and invited one of the Jewish prisoners and offered him to escape with the group, however, they were betrayed  and shot in July 1942 on the camp grounds. Ivan Woloszyn survived the war and gave evidence1965/1966 in the Ukraine during the proceedings against guards from Belzec..His escape was well known to the inhabitants of Belzec and apparently was celebrated with glee.
End of March to June 1943 the Belzec camp was entirely  dismantled. The gas chambers were completely destroyed, the barracks and other usable parts removed and sent  to Lublin. The site was levelled and young pine trees were planted, so that no trace remained of the crimes committed here.
By the end of June 1943, the Germans, put the last prisoners of the Sonderkommando into a freight train in the direction of Sobibor. Former members of the SS camp personnel testified after the war, they had not intended to shoot the last inmates there at Belsec, because they anticipated an uprising of the prisoners and afraid of this as soon as the first shot would have been fired.  The Jewish prisoners were fully aware of their fate and what was in store for them and tried to save themselves by jumping out of the wagons. As early as Zwierzyniec near Belzec the Germans were shooting at fleeing prisoners. However, some managed to escape, for example, Chaim Hirszman,, the second Belsec inmate who survived the war. Also Sylko Herc who was from Krakau fled from this Transport. From his time as a Capo in Belzec he knew some of the inhabitants of the village and therefore went back first to Belzec. Then he went on his way to Krakau, where his wife and children were hiding. Whether he ever got there is unknown. The prisoners who had not attempted to flee on their way, threw themselves upon arrival in Sobibor, onto the Germans or fled respectively in different directions. All of them were apprehended and  shot. The Germans had as a precautionary measure  no other prisoner at the ramp to assist during disembarking. The Sobibor prisoners learned only during the sorting of the clothes from  the victims by hidden messages, that the Jewish prisoners had come from Belzec.(112) [Chaim Hirszman survived the war but was killed in 1946 by Polish anti-Semites.sic]
Ref.:112-Thomas Toivi Blatt, From the Ashes of Sobibor, A Story of Survival, Evanston 1997, page 113
The abandoned camp area was now a magnet for residents of Belzec and the surrounding area who were digging there for valuables and gold. Upon learning this after the evacuation  the SS garrison went back to Belzec and levelled the terrain again. To further secure and make it impossible for the civilian population to enter the old camp site, the SS had created a farm on which an ethnic German (Volksdeutscher) was managing. He lived there until July 1944 and then fled before the Red Army.
One part of the transport documents remained at the Belzec train station. These were mainly track documents that most  likely contained information about the size of transports and number of persons that went into the camp. They were destroyed, as well as the Station Building  at the beginning of July 1944, when a German ammunition train was bombed by a Soviet aircraft.


NUMBER OF VICTIMS
Since there are no contemporary documents regarding the extermination camp at Belzec, to date, the exact number of victims that died can not be established. Also the identity of some victims' groups can only be discussed as there were a number of different nationalities. The Germans set up the camp, originally and especially for the killing of Jews. There is some evidence that there were non-Jewish Poles,and Roma that have been eliminated. The first estimates of the casualties had been used from the investigation of the Lublin District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in the years 1945 and 1946 under the Chairmanship of Judge Eugeniusz Szrojt. He mentioned a figure of about 600,000 people murdered at Belzec, which has been quoted in historical literature for many years. (115) In the 60s and 70s there were two studies on the number of deaths in the camps of "Aktion Reihardt". These studies were based solely on estimates alone. Wolfgang Scheffler calculated as a consultant for the West German criminal process in 1971, the number of deported people to extermination camps of "Aktion Reihardt". He came to the conclusion that 447442 people, mostly Jews from Poland, but also from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, were deported to Belzec. According to his calculation this included around 30710 non-Polish Jews who were mostly in transit ghettos in the Lublin district that perished in  Belzec. (116) In many other ghettos, especially in major cities such as Krakau, Lemberg, Stanislawow Tarnopol, Rzeszow or Lublin, lived large groups of Jewish refugees who were from the German Reich who had fled prior to1939 via Czechoslovakia. Their number can now only be found with difficulty. In and around Stanislawow lived several thousand Hungarian Jews who were expelled in 1941 from the Carpathian-Ukraine,  some of them certainly died in Belzec, we will never know.
Polish researchers also came up in the 70s to the realisation that in Belzec less than 600,000 people had been murdered. In their publications, the number of 500,000 victims appeared (117) in the early 90s, the Polish historian Josef Marszalek published a new estimate on the basis that 141 transports were sent to Belzec with an average of 3425 persons in them. He arrived at a total of 483 000 victims (118)
Fresh impetus for a more precise calculations of the number of victims was the discovery of a decrypted British secret radio message from Hermann Höfle, who reported valid information on January 11, 1943, to Adolf Eichmann in the Jewish Section of the Reich Security Main Office on the transports of Jews during the activities of "Aktion Reinhardt". This document had been preserved in the Public Record Office in Kew, England, and only released in the year 2000. In this (Höfle) indicates that until 31 December 1942 a total of 434 508 Jews were deported to Belzec. (119) The accuracy of the number in this document (including in relation to the camps at Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek) is astonishing. It can be assumed that the Germans had a system were data was  transmitted on the basis of these exact numbers. Maybe there was a web of inter-connecting sections that collated documents or reports from local police departments that reported the number of deportees into each extermination camp.
Little is known about the number of Polish and Roma victims. The first calculations of researcher Eugenisz Szrojt contained the information that about 1,500 Poles had been killed at Belzec,  most of them,  because they had helped persecuted Jews. His calculations are founded solely on the testimony of the rail-road worker Stefan Kisz from Rawa Ruska, who also gave varied statements during several months of investigations between 1945 and 1946 (120) Other witnesses from Belzec were cautious with their statements. They said that there had been individual Poles in the transports, and that few people had been shot in the camp grounds who were very interested in what happens behind the barbed wire. No one tried to estimate the number of victims. (121)
It was rumoured that during the night when no combustion reactions was taking place in the gas chamber, trucks were brought in with Polish prisoners and shot at the camp grounds. (122) This was neither confirmed by the German perpetrators nor the members of the Trawniki guards, who after the war had been convicted in the Soviet Union. (123) One can therefore assume that Poles died in Belzec, but certainly not in numerical large groups.
Even less is known about the Roma. Only a security guard testified that he had witnessed during the first phase of the camp two groups of Roma who had been shot comprising of eight to ten people in the camp by SS Sergeant Kurt Franz and the platoon commander of the Trawniki men Schmidt. (124) The other investigation of 1945 and 1946 showed only a statement of a women resident, who mentioned an arrival of Roma's at Belzec: "In 1942 I went along the road of Rawa Ruska to Belzec and watched as the Germans in two cars with Gypsies in them drove into the camp, they begged on their knees to be released". (125) This source of information is dubious and gives no other indication as to the number of people involved, thus a figure of how many Roma died at Belzec can not be ascertained.                                                          

Ref: 115 - Eugeniusz Szrojt, the extermination camp at Belzec Vol.3 (1947), page 43f. Upon Szrojts this figure is quoted in  writings by: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, page 127.The number 600 000 deaths was                  used also as a basis in a Munich court during the trial against Josef Oberhauser.
Ref :116-BArch Ludwigsburg, B 162/208, page investigation of Karl Streibel, Michael Janczek, Erwin Mittrach, Theodor Penziok, Kurt Reinberger and Joseph Napieralle, Vol.4 page 43
Ref :117-Czeslaw Madajczyk, The Politics of the Third Reich in occupied Polen.Vol 2 page 343
Ref :118-Josef Marszalek, the system of death camps in the General Government and its functions, page 33
Ref: 119 - Peter Witte/Stephen Tyas, A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Operation Reinhardt" 1942 page 469f
Ref :120- Statements by Stefan Kirsz on 15.10.1945 and 20/02/1946: APMM, photocopies Sign 1284
Ref :121-Eustachy Ukrainski statement, on 11.101945: APMM, photocopies, Sign 1284
Ref: 122 - Interview with Wladyslaw Brogowski 29.4.2007 in AMMPB
Ref: 123 -Statement Nikita Mamczur 03/10/1966 in: StA Munich, StanW 33033/32. Statements of Trawniki-guards and their activities at Belzec, Page 263
Ref :124-statement Mitrofan Klöz, 07/09/1965, in ibid, page 105
Ref :125-statement Mary Daniel, 10/11/1945, in APMM, Fotocopy, Sign 1284, OKBL, Ds. 1604/45



                                                                                                 continued under PART 7

BELZEC Extermination Camp part 5

CHANGING OF THE CAMP COMMANDANT AND STRENGTHENING OF GUARDS.
  On 1 August 1942 arrived a new camp commandant at Belzec. SS-1st Lieutenant Christian Wirth became "Inspector of the extermination camps of "Aktion Reinhardt"while at the same time he was commander of the sub-camp Lublin-Lipowastraße in the former aircraft factory "Plage  Laskiewicz" in Lublin. This was the main collection point where confiscated  property of the victims of "Aktion Reinhardt" was moved and stored. in his place, who had travelled here from Germany was SS Captain Gottlieb Hering,  who had previously worked together at the Stuttgart police and during the "Operation T4" with Wirth. in his cruelty, he resembled Wirth, though he was rarely present within the camp. The survivor Rudolf Reder described him in following terms: "We knew that the camp commandant lived in a beautiful house next to the railway station Belzec. He was a First Lieutenant,[in fact his rank was Hauptsturmführer, which is a Captain,sic]  his name I can not remember,   although I keep trying. It was a short name. He was rarely seen in the camp,  only came when something happened or went wrong. He was a big grown thug, broad-shouldered, about 40, with a vulgar expression,  probably the way a born criminal looks like.  An absolute monster. Once the killing machine broke down. He was informed of this, came into the camp, riding on his horse and ordered the repair of the machine. He did not allow, however, people out of the gas chambers, rather let them suffer few hours longer and in agonies of the stifling and suffocating gas chambers. He crouched down with rage, screaming and trembling. Although he rarely showed up, but he was the terror of the SS men". (80) From testimony of former SS men it is well known that Hering behaved particularly cruel towards the Trawniki men, some of which he sentenced to death for lack of obedience and escape attempts or for the theft of Jewish property. (81)[ Under Hering's rule at least 350,000 Jews were killed in Belzec. After the liquidation of Belzec in spring 1943, he became commander of the forced labour camp Poniatowa. On 4 November 1943 all Jewish inmates of the camp were shot in the course of Aktion Erntefest. In 1944 he was ordered to Italy, where he again replaced Wirth as chief of Kommando R 1 in Trieste after Wirth's death. On 9 October 1945 he died as a result of illness at the Katherinen Hospital in Stetten im Remstal, Germany.sic]
Ref :80-Reder, Belzec, page 63
Ref :81-statement, Heinrich U., 21/07/1960, BArch in Ludwigsburg, B 162/208, the trial against Josef Oberhauser, Vol 5, page 965; Arad, Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, page100-104.

Hering, Bolender, and Zierke

Probably together with Hering additional SS-men arrived at Belzec. They replaced the guards, Wirth had delegated to the extermination camps at Sobibor and Treblinka, the main aim was, they should strengthen the camp staff of the planned influx of larger Transports. Among them were Hans Girtzig, Heinrich Unverhau, Karl Johann Gley, Robert Jührs and Werner Dubois-all former employees of the "Euthanasia" campaign.  Some were for duties at the assembly point near the ramp, another for the supervision of the Sonderkommandos, the digging of graves (like Girtzig) or to sort out the effects deposited  in the old locomotive shed (Werner Dubois). The SS men were basically forever around in the camp grounds, and it seems that the commandant assigned them to different tasks as required. Many participated apart from their actual duties during the execution (shooting) of people who were not able to run to the Gas chambers. These executions took place in the summer of 1942 and even more frequently, because with the increasing number of transports,  invariably the proportion of deportees unable to walk did rise in numbers. (83)
Ref :83-Karl Schluch testified during the investigation, a surprise, that most SS men who served in the camp service, participated in the shootings of the elderly, disabled and young children, most commonly was Hackenbolt, Gley, Schwarz and Dubois. He himself was not present at the executions. That is, given the fact that he was the only defendant of the few that did give a reasonably precise method and procedure at the gas chambers  and corrected others, was accepted as truthful and factual. Karl Schluch statement, 11/10/1961, in StA Munich, StanW 33033/II, Process against Josef Oberhauser, page 1169.[Schluch's own statement contradicts previous comments and reports, that he, too, did participated in shootings, although he was acquitted of the charges during the trials sic.]

The number of Trawniki men was reinforced. In the summer of 1942 their number rose to  120 men, divided into three section for service at Belzec. Officially, they were only used for surveillance. In fact, however, they were involved from the beginning throughout the extermination process. They were guarding the deportation trains at the Belzec station,  they were present on the ramp, they drove the Jews from the ramp and watched them in the undressing shed, through the "Sclauch" and into the gas chambers. Like the SS, they behaved brutally and ruthlessly. A former security guard testified after the war: "Our role in the extermination of the Jews was that we had to sometimes pull the victims out by force from the freight cars and drove them to the barracks where they had to undress. We forced them to strip naked, and then drove them through a passage(Schlauch) fenced in with barbed wire to the gas chambers. We ran them into the gas chamber. I would like to note that all security guards who served in the Belzec extermination camp did the same service".

Ukranians drinking at the Belzec Camp

Both the Germans and the Trawniki men used whips,(Peitsche) batons, rifle butts, bayonets, and the strength of their hands and feet to drive the victims as quickly as possible into the gassing facilities. Trawniki men, especially their leaders, ethnic German from Russia, also took part in the shooting of the weak, non-ambulatory, elderly and sick people. (86)
Ref :86-statement of Vasily Orlowski, 23.8.1965, in: ibid, page 135th The leaders of the three "sections" that made up the guard company in the extermination camp at Belzec were, Schmidt, Schneider, and Siebert, presumably Volga German.(Wolga Deutsche)

DISPOSAL OF THE MURDERED
One of the biggest problems the camp administration at Belzec had to deal with was the removal of the corpses. Even in the initial extermination phase in the spring of 1942 the stench of rotting bodies was evident throughout Belzec, their smell was even noticed by the inhabitants of the village that was relatively far away from the camp. (87) First, the bodies were buried only in mass graves, but soon a smelly liquid would ooze from the graves, which was created by the decaying process and the stench spread throughout and rapidly towards Belzec. Janusz Peter described it. "In the passenger trains, which led through Belzec, no one crowded at the window to see the infamous place of execution. Depending on the wind direction, the windows were quickly shut as far away as Lubycza or Susiec, and the conductor announced at times, all who wanted to get out in Belzec, to get out of the coaches on the corridor side. Even in the nine Kilometers away township Tomaszow Lubelski,  people had to vomit or fainted. Some had to leave the area because they suffered from chronic headaches , weight loss,  loss of appetite or suffering from anaemia. Although the Nazis devoted a lot of efforts to the "big thing" they themselves could no longer stand the awful unpleasant  smell. Finally, they drove some freight cars to the pits with cement and covered them  with a layer of concrete". (88)
Ref :87-16-year-old at the time, Wladyslaw Brogowski reported that in April 1942 in Belzec all smelled after "Sauerkraut". The residents quickly came to the conclusion that the cause of the smell were rotting corpses from the camp. In the summer of 1942 the stench intensified. Prof. Brogowski then lived four to five Kilometers from the camp. Interview with Prof. Wladyslaw Brogowski, 29.4.2007, in: AMMPB.
Ref: 88 - Peter W Belzcu,page 196.

Holes dug by Poles searching for valuables  in the area of the former death camp

This trial method which was introduced had not the desired effect, because the gasses that were released during the decaying of the thousands of corpses degraded the concrete and did not stop the smell. This was probably  the reason why the Germans began in early summer 1942, to burn the bodies in the mass graves. To make this process more efficient, they confiscated the bellows from mills in an effort that this should keep the fire constantly burning. A cremation on a  larger scale, however, began only in November 1942. (90) Until then, most of the bodies were still brought by prisoners of the Sonderkommando into the mass graves that they still dug out. This work was done by Jewish prisoners, manually as well as with a mechanical digger that was brought into the camp.
The first pyres were burning until January 1943. The bottom layer was formed of railway tracks and stones, then they stacked layers of wood and corpses, all doused with oil and lit it. On one day you could burn about 2,000 bodies in this way.  Already at that this point in time began the exhumation of mass graves. The purpose and order to leave no traces  by burning virtually all of the dead bodies did not begin until January 1943 when no more transports came to Belzec.
Ref. :90-Rudolf Reder, who was until November 1942 in Belzec, does not mention any cremations. Reder, Belzec, page 57. The fact that the pyres were already burning since November 1942, reported the former SS-man Dubois on 29.4.1963, in: StA Munich, Stan W 33033/II, during the trial of Josef Oberhausen, Page 1517

PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT BELZEC
At least since the summer of 1942 the Belzec extermination camp was known in far away remote areas of the General Government. Although not all the details were reported back to the public, the majority of Poles, Jews and Germans, had been aware of the name of this camp and associated it with a place of Jewish exterminations. Hans Bratsch, who was employed as a German policeman(Gendarm) in Jaslo and Nowy Sacz in the district of Krakau and was involved in the closure of the local ghetto, testified after the war. "The Jews were crowded into freight cars like sardines, men, women and children, I reported the departure of the train and knew at that time even the name of the place to which they travelled. This place was an extermination camp and  that the Jews were gassed, I learned later, during my service in Jaslo and Nowy Sacz  that the Jews in a particular location were collected and killed there somehow".
Furthermore, Polish railway workers and escapees from the camp did provide information about Blezec. Also German and Polish passengers who travelled by train through Belzec reported about the camp. Officials of the German civil administration in the area or employees of the German Labour Office(Arbeitsamt) in Zamosc regularly visited the camp and kept a friendly relationship with the SS crew. Former German civil servants from Zamozc and Tomscow said consistently after the war, that the knowledge about Belzec was widespread throughout the area under the Germans and the Poles.
It is therefore not surprising that this knowledge came also to the Jews trapped in ghettos. The farther they were removed from Belzec, the less the victims could believe what happened to the deportees. In the surrounding towns like Lemberg they knew a lot about it, which is not to say that the majority refused to acknowledge this. Many still argued that it would be contrary to all logic, if the Germans would kill all the Jews. However, many then were looking for rescue possibilities: in the fall of 1942, the escapes from transportations became a mass phenomenon.
ESCAPE ATTEMPTS DURING TRANSPORTS
During the entire trip some deportees jumped  from fast moving trains. Even at the station of Belzec desperate Jews were fleeing right before the eyes of waiting passenger on the platform and were shot on the run  by their escorts. Most of them died during the jump, shot or died of their injuries along the rail-way track. Those who had survived the jump, were often apprehended by patrolling Ukrainian, Polish or German soldiers or civilians from the area, who received money for the so called "Springer" (Jumpers). Usually the escapees were trying to organise themselves as quickly as possible into small groups. However, their fate was often sealed, because without weapons and without the support of the local population, which in most cases refused to hide Jews, they were easy prey for the police. Janusz Peter described their situation: "The fate of these short-term recovered group was predetermined, the askaris (Ukrainian guards) scoured the woods and thickets along the rail-road tracks thoroughly, and knew from experience that the victims would easily fall into their hands.  Also peasants (Bauern) would turn against them, after listening to the plight of these pathetic half-crazed beings, it made no difference. It was even quite common that the wandering refugees found no support and then either were reported to the askaris or in the village itself, and therefore begged to be sent to the camp at Belzec. The Jews, who were often city dwellers had, in the woods no orientation and could not satisfy their simple survival needs and quickly found , that they could not cope".  This assessment is a stereotype that was prevalent among the non-Jewish population. Examples show that even in the near Belzec area, small Jewish partisan units as well as family camps existed that housed the escapees from transports and ghettos. The decision to report themselves to the police, had more to do, that he or she had given up all hope to receive help from the outside.  Local farmers were afraid to help Jews who had escaped, because it entailed the death sentence (die Todesstrafe) for the whole family, and among the nearest neighbours there were often informers. This is what Janusz Peter had to say: "One should mention that along the railway line of Belzec-Zwierzyniec roamed quite a few spies, jackals in human bodies, who were willing to betray others for money and to kill, as well as ordinary profiteers, who collected along the way objects that had been thrown from the trains. These were mainly letters in different languages​​, even in Greek, documents, books, prayer books, often rare items, money and jewellery and the like".
The deportees had often with them, tools like small metal files or knifes to cut an opening inside the freight cars. In the fall of 1942, a group arrived with no baggage, nor did they carry money or jewellery, lest it fall into the hands of the Germans. Upon arrival at the camp, they threw themselves at the SS men and guards. Janusz Peter described that the guard Gottfried Schwarz was wounded by a Jew at the ramp and had to be treated in the hospital. During the Tomaszow-Lubelski  post-war investigations, however, no SS-man reported of resistance on the camp grounds. [They would normally not do so, partly due to their indoctrination: ["Widerstände sind da um sie zu brechen, und nicht davor zu kapitulatieren", Adolf Hitler in "Mein Kampf", (Resistance is there to be broken and not to capitulate) I still remember it to this day sic.] However, Polish residents from Belzec still recall that the drunken guards told them about the Jewish resistance efforts. (98) The Trawniki men also reported actions of resistance in the camp. They confirmed that some of the arriving Jews already knew the truth about Belzec and objected and were recalcitrant upon  arrival at the camp. This justified the Trawniki men to the brutal treatment of the deportees. (99)
Ref :98-statement of Miecyslaw Nieduzak, 10.3.1967, in: AIPNL, sign Ds. 338/67, investigations into labour camps for Jews in Belzec Folwark. The files and saws, which took away the Jews in transports, see Taffet, The Destruction of the Jews, page 41f.
Ref :99-statement of Mitrofan Klötz, 8.9.1965, in: StA Munich, StanW 33033/32, 103 statements from Trawniki Wachmämmer to their activities at Belzec on page 103.

EXCERPT FROM THE MEMOIR OF RUTA WERMUTH
 "In September 1942, the entire population of the (Kolomyja) ghetto were ordered to gather in the yard of the Judenrat, allegedly to be registered. Some 5,000 people presented themselves. In the manner commonly used by the Germans by way of "selection", approximately 300 were chosen and sent to the right – which meant life. All others, surrounded by Ukrainian militia and SS men with specially trained dogs, were herded in the direction of the railway station.
The column moved slowly towards the railway station. Apart from the sound of the scraping of thousands of feet, it was amazingly quiet. From time to time a child would cry, to be quickly silenced by its mother. There were only a few children and elderly men and women. Always amongst the weakest of the ghetto inmates, many of the youngest and eldest had perished earlier. The ghetto had been closed in early spring, and terror, hunger and disease had prowled there ceaselessly.
It was a long journey to the railway station, situated on the outskirts of the town. We waited in vain for a miracle to happen... We came to the station buildings, but we were driven on further, to the ramp, where a very long train with many cattle wagons was waiting. The doors of the wagons were already open, ready for loading. There was an odour of chlorine, which had been abundantly sprinkled within the wagons. Obedient to this point, at the sight of the train the column wavered, then with a final cry of despair, broke and dispersed. Did I scream too? If so, it was subconsciously, joining in the anguish of all around me.
Suddenly we heard shooting. An additional detachment of Ukrainian militia ran towards the ramp. Like the Gestapo, they carried long whips. The SS and militia began to attack the crowd, who were already deranged with fear. The nightmare began.
Barking dogs, cracking whips, the guttural orders of Germans and the vulgar shouts of Ukrainians: "Vorwärts, los, los, schnell, schnell!" and "Go on, you damned Jewish pigs!", the screaming voices all merging into a single yell. Attempting to avoid the beating, people quickly helped each other to climb the high steps of the cattle wagons for the assumed safety of the wagons' interiors. Wave by wave, driven on, insulted and cursed, the people rapidly filled the wagons.
When it was so full that it seemed impossible than any more could be crammed in, a drunken Ukrainian militiaman climbed into the wagon and began swinging his whip and shooting in all directions. As a result, people standing near him pushed themselves further into the wagon in order to avoid the lashing whip. Into the space thus created, another group was forced, to the accompaniment of shouting and shooting. This method of filling the wagons had been long established.
The screaming and yelling did not cease until late afternoon, when the train finally moved. To where? There was no doubt – ultimately to death.
I was in one of those wagons, along with my parents. We were still together. My parents probably thanked God that I often lost consciousness, because what was taking place inside the wagon exceeded the most vivid conception of purgatory.
How long did it last? Hours? Eternity?
Whenever I recovered consciousness I was still there – in hell. In a wagon that could hardly contain 50 or 60 people, some 200 had been packed. (...) Cries, stench, and the acrid odour of chlorine...
Through the screams and the drumming of the wheels we could hear shooting. In a moment of awareness, I realized that we were standing naked, pressed to the side of the wagon. With their intertwined arms, my parents had created a kind of shelter. It was thanks to this that I was still alive. I noticed that everybody was naked, although I remembered that we had all entered the wagon fully clothed. It was so hot that people had somehow managed to undress themselves in the midst of the crowd. Those standing in the middle were probably already dead, but were unable to fall down.
Suddenly, I felt a breath of fresh air. There was now more room around us. My mother whispered in my ear:"Do you hear me dear? If you understand what I say, just nod. Some young people managed to make a hole in the side of the wagon and they are jumping out, one by one. We have decided to do the same. First Papa will jump, then you, and finally me. The train is going through the forest now. Its night. If you make it, try to hide in the forest. Don't be afraid. We will find you afterwards..." I nodded that I understood. Before I realised what was happening, strong arms took me up and pushed me out of the wagon through a narrow hole. I was suspended for a moment, held by my armpits, choked by the blast of fresh air. I became more aware. Not for long. The arms that held me opened and I fell into a dark abyss..."
LIFE AFTER
Her mother subsequently managed to assume a false identity to get a position as a maid in a local Manor House, but was unable to keep Ruta since she had no papers. Ruta decided to assume a false identity and go to the last place the Germans would think of looking for her: to volunteer for work inside Germany.
Ruta survived for the rest of the war working in various positions in western Germany; at a shoe factory, in the household of a well connected German, and at the BMW plant in Allach (near Munich). It was at this final assignment that she met her future husband,- another Pole named Witek Burak. [The German spelling of her name is Ruth. sic]


                              Continued under Part 6


                                                   

BELZEC Extermination Camp part 4

THE SECOND PHASE OF DEPORTATION
By the end of May 1942 smaller shipments from the environments of (Cieszanow, Komarov, Krasnobrod, probably from Tyszowce and Zamosc) which was when the second deportation phase began to arrive at Belzec. (60) in early June 1942 it was followed by larger transports from the Krakau district, mainly from the cities of Krakau and Tarnow. 7000-7500 Jews were deported from Krakau between the 1-8 June in four transports to Belzec. Between 11 and 18 June approximately 10,000 people came from Tarnow in three large transports to the camp.

German officials examine the pile of abandoned luggage left on the platform after the departure of a deportation train on its way to the Belzec death camp

From 18 or 19 June 1942 to 8 or 9 July 1942, the camp once again closed for any arrivals and was partly rebuilt in two weeks. The old building with the three gas chambers was demolished, and new, massive, especially larger gas chambers  were erected there by Trawniki men and Jewish prison work teams.
Ref :60-Due to the incomplete information of places at their point of loading for this period, and can not be provided in all cases, it is unclear whether they were taken to Belzec or Sobibor, which commenced operation at this time. Compare this with: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhardt Death Camps, Bloomington, 1999, statement by Ludwik Obalak, 10.10.1945, in: APMM, photocopies, sign 1284, OKBL, sign 1604/45
DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAS CHAMBERS
The new gas chambers were solid buildings and divided into six rooms. The details of the SS men to the actual size of these rooms are contradictory,  they were probably 20-30 square meters wide. Heinrich Gley testified that the new type would have the capacity of up to 3,000 people that could be eliminated at any time.  Another SS man Heinrich Unverhau claimed on the other hand, that you could kill 1,200 people at the same time, when there were six rooms in each with 200-250 people. Werner Dubois, described that in each chamber you would fit up to 750 people. This number was also confirmed by the former inmate Rudolf Reder.
The gasification plant was expanded, however, it was still connected to the old engine, which had been used in the first phase of exterminations in the camp. The gas chambers were to resemble as before to be a shower room. Whether there were also mock shower heads is not known .. The former SS officer Karl Schluch described in his testimony, the gas chambers: "They had a friendly, light-colored paint. Whether the paint was yellowish or gray, I now can no longer remember, it may well be that the walls were painted with an oil paint . [...] the newly arriving Jews should not have guessed,  for what purpose the rooms were prepared for, but they should believe it was a bath".

Gypsy couple sitting in an open area in the Belzec concentration camp.jpg

A detailed description of the new gas chambers is narrated by Rudolf Reder, who from the 16 August to November 1942 was as a prisoner in the camp: "The building, which housed the gas chambers was low, long and wide, made of gray concrete, with a flat tar-paper covered roof (Pappdach) and wire netting, which was covered with green stuff. From the outside, three steps led into the inside, one meter wide, with no railing. In front of the building was a large vase with colourful flowers. On the wall above had been legibly written 'Bathing and Inhalation Rooms'(Bade-und Inhalationsräume) . You went up the steps into a dark corridor, which was 1.5 meters wide, but very long. It was quite empty, four concrete walls, to the left and right there  were doors to the gas chambers. The doors were made of wood, one meter wide, and opened with a wooden handle. The gas chambers were completely dark with no windows and completely empty. In each chamber could be seen a round hole the size of a[electrical sic] socket. The walls and floors were made ​​of concrete. The corridor and the chambers were lower than normal rooms, they were less than two meters high. At the opposite side of each chamber were also doors, two meters wide, through which you threw out the bodies after the suffocation. On the outside of the building was a small extension, perhaps two meters by two meters wide, in which the 'machine' was located, a gasoline engine. [Note: This statement is contrary to all previous claims that Belzec had a Diesel Engine  see part of the Gerstein Report below,sic]. The chambers were located approximately 1.5 meters above the ground, the ramp behind the doors at the same height, so that the corpses were thrown down from there to the ground ", Ref (64). Reder, Bezec, page 51
A Witness: Lt. Gerstein
He reports that on 18 August he traveled to the extermination camp at Belzec where the next day he witnessed the arrival of "45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival.” He continues by describing the procession in front of him: “Then the procession starts moving. In front a very lovely young girl; so all of them go along the alley, all naked, men, women, children, without artificial limbs. I myself stand together with Hauptmann Wirth on top of the ramp between the gas chambers. Mothers with babies at their breast, they come onward, hesitate, enter the death chambers!” After the doors are closed, there is a technical hitch: the diesel motor will not start, but finally he writes, “After two hours and 49 minutes - the stop watch has registered everything well - the diesel starts. Until this moment the people live in these 4 chambers, four times 750 people in 4 times 45 cubic metres! Again 25 minutes pass. Right, many are dead now. One can see that through the small window in which the electric light illuminates the chambers for a moment. After 28 minutes only a few are still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, everyone is dead!”
Presumably, during the conversion of the gas chambers, the ramp on the arrival track was extended. Rudolf Reder remembers that the deportees had to jump from a height of more than one meter from the wagons, with some arms and legs broken. He also stated that the ramp was lengthened to a total of about one Kilometer long. (65, Ibid page 46f), this seems impossible. The ramp from the camp entrance to the very end could not be more than 500 meters long.[Which is half the length he is claiming sic.] Whether additional barracks were built on the grounds of the camp is not known.
In the second phase of the camp six Jewish musicians were obliged to perform  during the arrival of the prisoners and play music on their way to the gas chamber. Their instruments were from stolen Jewish property. The camp Band of Belzec played orchestral pieces, especially "It will all pass, it's all over," (Es geht alles vorüber, es geht alles vorbei)"Three Lilies"(Drei Lilien) and the famous Polish folk song "Hey Goral does, it not harm you?".(Hey Gorale, tut es dir nicht leid) The music could be heard up into the village.
THE SUMMER 1942 DEPORTATIONS, (Second Phase)
The admission procedure of transports did not change after the rebuilding of the gas chambers. It, however, increased the number of those killed. While the average number of persons per transport in the first phase was about in 1500-2500, then during the summer of 1942 the Belzec trains delivered train loads, each containing 3000-6500 people. The high point in the transport numbers was in August 1942, as the "Great Action"(Große Aktion) was held in Lemberg . From the 10 to 25 August 1942, 40000-45000 Lemberger Jews were brought to the Belzec extermination camp. From Lemberg alone the transports on an average held 6000-6500 people. During the "Great Action" in Lemberg no other transports arrived from the district of Galicia, but from the district of Krakow(Krakau), including the counties of Krosno, and Jaslo Gorlice. (68) The largest transport arrived on the 10 September 1942 from the district Kolomyia with 8205 Jews from Galicia, Kolomyia, Kosow, Sniatynia, Horodenka and Zablotow. (69)
It must be assumed that probably in August 1942 alone, some 130,000 Jews were deported to Belzec. In September 1942 the number was conservatively estimated at approximately 80,000. (70) During the hot summer months of 1942 because of the crowded transports more deaths occurred even during a short train journey. Frequently, there were over 100 people compressed into a freight car, without sufficient fresh air, water or food. (71) Even on the relatively short ones with about 80 Kilometres route between Lemberg to Belzec  many people fainted or died in the cars.

Gypsy King Kwiek at Belzec

Ref :68-Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, page 388. In comparison with other sources and publications Arad's figures appear to be in increased slightly.
Ref :69-This transport is described in, Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men. The Reserve Polizeibattalion 101 and the "Final Solution" in Poland, Reinbeck, near Hamburg, 1999, page 52-56. Published in Polish only, the memory of a woman who fled from this transport is: Ruth Wermuth,. "I met people, the story of a tragic beginning and of an unusual end". Poznan 2002 Page 10-14.
Ref:70 -As already mentioned, the research to determine the number of those deported and murdered in Belzec in each month is still pending.
Ref:71-statement Edward Luczynski, 28/01/1965. In: AIPNL, Sign 08/298, investigation files to SS crimes in the area and other Wojeodschaft Lublin, Vol.I
Tadeusz Misiewicz, an inhabitant of Belzec and then ticket seller on the local train station, recalled: "I had several opportunities to notice that the people who were brought to the site were completely naked. You could see this through the missing planks in the boxcars. The Germans had forbidden to bring the Jews drinking water to the boxcars. [...] I was told at the station in Belzec, that the Jews from a wagon in which they were taken to the death camp at Belzec, had a board torn out,  through this opening  a Jewess stuck out her head and cried for help. But it was a German policeman who with such force smashed into her face that her head was shattered. Through this hole you could see that the naked Jews sat on naked dead bodies, which was perhaps representing a quarter of those trapped inside the car".(72)
Ref :72-statement of Tadeusz Misiewicz, 14.10.1945, in: APMM, photocopies, Sign 1284, OKBL, Ds. 1604/45. In the summer of 1942, the people removed frequently their clothing in the carriage by themselves, due to the high temperatures they could not endure. In the fall of 1942 the Germans ordered the deportees to undress before entering the cars, to prevent escapes from the transports. Wermuth, Spotkalam Iudzi, page 10-14.

Kurt Gerstein

Kurt Gerstein, director of the Office of "Technical Disinfection and Health Technology" in the SS Hygiene Institute, visited in the summer of 1942 on behalf of the Reich Security Main Office, the extermination camp at Belzec. His visit with Professor Wilhelm Pfannenstiel was associated with the testing of hydrogen cyanide(Blausäure) for mass destruction(Massenvernichtung) and of Zyklon B to disinfect the clothes of the murdered in the extermination camps. Besides Belzec, Gerstein visited the camps at Treblinka and Majdanek, which at this point were not finished with their gas chambers. Although Gottlieb Hering was already camp commandant at Belzec, Gerstein was led by Christian Wirth through the camp. Probably the visit took place on 18 August 1942, at a time when daily transports of Jews from Lemberg to Belzec arrived. Gerstein observed the extermination (Vernichtung) of a Lemberger Transport and noted in his famous report that the consignment consisted of 6500 people and that 1450 had died already in transit.

Gottlieb Hering

On the methods of murder, after Gerstein's visit nothing changed . The cyanide bottles were buried in the vicinity of the camp. Perhaps they are the 26 cyanide bottles, which were found in 1971 in a sand pit behind the former camp grounds. (74) Gerstein tried to pass his knowledge of the mass murder of Jews on to foreign embassy members abroad.
Ref: 74 - The cyanide bottles were secured by the Army Engineers Unit of Chelm. After a cursory documentation, including some photos, the Demolition Unit destroyed the bottles. On these bottles, there were German inscriptions. It is known that they were produced in Berlin, unfortunately not, of which company. Along with the bottles themselves were also the remains of the boxes in which they were packed. The bottles were blown up in the fields of the village at Kornie Lubycza Krolewska into the air, see: Protocol on bottle find on the grounds of the sand pit at Belzec, in: AIPNL, acts of OKBZH Lublin, Ds. 20/67, against Helmut Kellmeyer Investigation Records, responsible for building the gas chambers at Belzec extermination camp, interview with Tadeusz Wolzyk, Chelm, 25.2.2004, in: AMMPB, interviews and reports, Sign 46. Tadeusz  Wolczyk during the destruction of the bottles was the supervising officer.

Jewish children -all perished at Belzec

Upon arrival of the transports no names, but only the number of persons were registered. When driven into the box cars the deportees were counted and the number was written in chalk on the outside of the freight wagons. Probably no transport to Belzec had a list of names of the deportees. It could be that before the deportation in Ghetto lists of names were created. To date, no list of names of deportees to Belzec was found.
How the extermination process went on after the new and improved gas chambers were functioning is described by Rudolf Reder. "After all the chambers were filled, the doors were hermetically sealed, the outside doors locked  and wedged, the engine was  started and had been served by the prisoner Moniek. , a cab driver from Krakau. (77) The motor ran for 20 minutes, then Moniek gave a sign to a machinist and turned off the engine. After the engine was stopped, the prisoners working there opened to the command of  Moniek the doors, and a couple of them with the use of straps wound around the arms pulled the bodies down from the gas chambers and dragged them to the mass graves, which had been dug with the help of machines. On the way from the gas chamber to the pit, dentists pulled from the corpses the gold teeth. [...] The air in the gas chambers was after the opening of the doors clear and odourless. In particular,  there was absolutely no smoke or combustion gas from the engine. [...] During the first period after closure of the gas chambers, horrific screams could be heard and  complaints,(Klagen) but after a few minutes there was a grave silence. It seemed to be that never after the opening of the chambers that still someone was still living. The corpses were still warm, to drown out the cries, the prison orchestra was playing from morning till night".

hackenholt 1940

Ref:77-To operate the engine, the combustion gas which was introduced into the gas chambers, was the responsibility of Lorenz Hackenbolt, who was called by the other SS men for this reason the "Gas Master".(Gasmeister) He was assisted by a Trawniki-man named Wlasiuk.[How accurate Rudolf Reder's narrative is, I leave it to others to judge, he has taken unpardonable liberties with the facts on a number of occasions.He was 61 years old and spent apparently only four months in Belsec. Or one could blame his ghost writer. Only to mention one example.
[Reder’s escape from the “death camp” is itself something of a miracle, I quote:
"I had been in this nightmare for nearly four months when, towards the end of November, Irrmann told me that the camp would need metal sheets, and a lot of them. I was swollen and blue all over. Pus ran from open wounds. Schmidt bludgeoned me about the face with a truncheon. With an ironic smile Irrmann told me that I would go to Lemberg under escort to fetch the sheets, adding 'Sollst nicht durchgehen' ['Don't try to escape']. Off I went in a lorry with one guard and four Gestapo. After loading the whole day, I stayed in the lorry guarded by one of the thugs, while the others went away looking for fun. I sat there for a few hours without moving or thinking. Then, quite by chance, I noticed that my guard was asleep and snoring. Instinctively and without a thought, I slipped down from the lorry and stood on the pavement pretending to adjust the load. Then I slowly backed away. Legionowa Street was full of people. There was a blackout. I pushed my cap down lower and no one noticed me. I remembered the address of my Polish housekeeper and went straight to her flat. She hid me. It took twenty months for the physical injuries to heal. But what of the mental wounds? I was haunted by images of past horror, hearing the moans of the murdered and the children crying, and the throb of a running engine. Nor could I wipe from my memory the faces of those German thugs. And in such a state of continuous nightmare I survived until the liberation."
Thus despite being “swollen and blue all over”, with pus running from open wounds, having suffered injuries which it took “twenty months“ to heal, 61 year old Reder was chosen by the Germans for the work of loading metal sheets! One would suspect that an old man in Reder’s condition would have been chosen for the quote of 30-40 prisoner workers allegedly killed off each day, rather than for hard work, but the legend must have it otherwise. That the SS would bring a Jewish prisoner from a secret extermination camp to a town just in order to do work that could well have been done by, for example, an Ukrainian guard, is of course perplexing in itself. Regarding the details of the escape, it may suffice to say that it reads like something from The Boy’s Own Paper or an old episode of Hogan’s Heroes.sic]


                                                                                              continued under Part 5











                                           

                                                                                                               

BELZEC Extermination Camp part 3

BEGINNING OF MASS MURDERS (Continued)
In the first phase of the camp, it seemed that the gas chambers door seals were not tight and people were still alive when the doors were opened. They were then driven to the mass graves and shot. (44) Also, the elderly, infirm, unconscious and small children who were not able to run on their own without the help of their parents to the undressing barracks and gas chambers. were executed at the mass graves. The commando that was responsible for the ramp, did carry these people from the unloading ramp through a specific passage in the fence that separated the camp area, directly towards the pits. Here, the Sonderkommando took the prisoners from them, and brought them to the edge of mass graves where they were undressed. After that, Wirth had selected specific SS-or Trawniki men, who shot the defenseless. Most frequently he used the most brutal of SS men of the camp for the execution: Lorenz Hackenbolt, Reinhold Feix, Heinrich Gley, Ernst Zierke, and Karl Schluch (45)
Ref: 44, statement Edward Luczynski, 15/10/1945, in APMM photocopies, Sign.1284, OKBL, DS 1604/45.
Ref: 45, Robert J. statements, 10/11/1961, 23/11/1961 and Henry G., BArc in Ludwigsburg, B 162/208, the trial against Josef Oberhauser, Vol.8, page 1479 and 1552ff. The latter claimed that every SS man of the Camp Administration received orders from Wirth,  to shoot those, that were not in a position and not able on their own strength to go into the Gas-chambers.
Each member of the SS garrison had a function that was described in the post-war period as a "general supervision service over the camp".(Allgemeiner Aufsichtsdienst über das gesamte Lager)For specific tasks the Trawniki men were in charge as well as selected prisoners from incoming Transports.
Every morning  a roll call was attended by all prisoners (Appell),  commandant Wirth as a rule appeared in person or his deputy, Gottfried Schwarz. Both gave orders to the assembled prisoners. Wirth also personally assigned tasks to his SS- subordinate. Each had his allotted duties to run, so that the extermination process(Vernichtungsprozess) was not disturbed. This principle was a basic rule during the whole period of existence of the camp at Belzec.
Even as the Jews were in the undressing barracks and were herded into the gas chambers, a Jewish prisoner commando under the supervision of an SS member, principally led by Rudolf Kammm (later Henry Unverhau) collected the baggage of the deportees from the ramp. Thereafter, the personal belongings of the deportees from the undressing barracks were brought down on special railway tipping cars (Loren) into the former locomotive shed. This building outside of the camp served as a magazine for the stolen property of the victims. Here,  Jewish prisoners assorted, also under the direction of the SS-man Kamm, the baggage, and removed the Star of David patch which would have been the identity and evidence of a previous owner from their clothing, and searched luggage and belongings for hidden money and valuables.

Remnants of the storage shed outside of Belzec

Remnants of the storage shed outside of Belzec

Clothing, shoes, bags were not registered at Belzec, they were packed in special railway wagons and shipped to Lublin, probably into the camp, called "Old Airport" the main magazine of the "Aktion Reinhardt" and all items were sorted a second time. In Belzec there  was no time for the registration and re-sorting of items, since the next part of the transport was already waiting to be led into the camp. Valuables and money and pulled gold teeth on the other hand, were brought to the headquarters building(Kommandanturgebäude). They were stored at the Administration Building within the compound(Hof) in a container, the Germans called the "Pavilion". Erwin Fichtner was responsible for these treasurers, the crew members of the camp called him the "accountant" or "cashier". A former railway worker of the Belzec station reported that cash and valuables were twice a week in a specially sealed box and attached by a chain inside the railway wagon transported under escort of German soldiers by a fast train(Eilzug) to Lublin.
The first phase of the deportation to Belzec took place on 17 March 1942 to April 1942. During this time parts of the Jewish population from Galicia and the district of Lublin was deported to the camp. Every day there were two, sometimes three transports that arrived. The largest groups of Jews came from the ghettos of Lublin and Lemberg (Lvov). From these cities, until March 31, 1942 transports arrived on a daily basis at Belzec. Also trains coming from other towns of the Lublin district like (Piski, Izbica, Lubartow and Zamosc) and Galicia.[I did not indicate other places as they are too numerous sic] According to current calculations, between mid-March and mid-April 1942 about 63,000 Jews were murdered at Belzec. (50) Although the average size for a transport according to the coordinator of "Operation Reinhardt", SS Captain Hermann Höfle, was from 1000 to 1500 people, although he admitted that during this period transports with 2000 passengers such as from Piaski near Lublin or Izbica did arrive periodically. (51) From the district of Galicia there were significantly larger shipments, for example, 4000 people from Stanislawow on 31 March 1942. (52) Smaller shipments for example, came from Zhovkva with only 700. (53)
Ref: 50 These numbers, however, should be seen as a preliminary to the memorial at Belzec, who are currently working to develop on an overview of all the transports to the extermination camp of Belzec. This current summary includes the date of shipment and the number of deportees who may be in many cases, unfortunately, only one approximation of the value based on survivor reports from the respective sites.
Ref: 51, During the first "action" in the ghetto of Piaski on 23 March 1942, about 3,400 people were taken to the Belzec extermination camp, including all the Jews from neighbouring towns of Biskupice and Trawniki:see BArch Ludwigsburg, B162/208, investigation of Karl Strebel, Michael Janczak, Erwin Mittrach and others, Vol.6, page 31.
Ref: 52, Dieter Pohl, Nazi persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941-1944. Organisation and implementation of a national mass crime, Munich 1997, pages 190-195, Kruglov, holocosta Chronicles, page 91. The latter indicates that on 31 March 1942, 2,500 Jews were deported to Belzec from Stanislawow.
Ref: 53 Gerszon Taffet, Zaglada Zydow zolkiewskiego [The Destruction of the Jews from Zhovkva], Lodz, 1946, page 28.
The knowledge of the killings at Belzec spread quickly under both, the Polish and among the Jewish population in the vicinity of the camp. The transports stopped at the public train station of Belzec, where the regular trains halted and was therefore used by ordinary passengers. A source of information were the Polish railway workers, who drove the transports, as well as the security guards that plied in some houses at Belzec.  Soon the first escapee's appeared from the camp as well. Janusz Peter reported and wrote: "It was common news of the events in the Belzec camp which spread like the flight of birds to the surrounding villages and by the railway workers across the country. The death camp at Belzec was an open secret and was confirmed by the fact that the food supply never increased for them. They only drew just as much bread as was necessary for the camp personal, although there should have been a considerable increase in demand due to the daily arrivals of a few thousand prisoners. In a vain attempt the Germans tried to condense and improve the fence surrounding the camp with spruce, because right at the beginning the planted trees started to yellow and the needles fell off, and through the withered branches you could see inside the camp. Everyone knew what was happening inside, and now there were no more guesses, because the Askaris and SS men, who drank themselves out of their minds and were gossiping (verplapperten) every bit now and again. [.. .]
Some Christians from the neighbourhood who were caught with too much loquacity, were also brought to the camp. Almost every transport of the condemned dropped through a window or a door crack cards and letters in which they warned those who remained at home and informed them, where and under what conditions they were going. First, a certain proportion of them reached the addressee, as the finder felt obliged to put the cards into a mailbox or even stamp it. Later, the head of the German post office  instructed to destroy all non-paid letters, and even prepaid ones if the addressee appeared to be a Jew ". Ref: 54, Peter W. Belzcu, page189f

Belzec station entrance

Goeckel - stationn master belzec

Some managed to escape at this phase of the extermination camp, for example, three young men from Lublin. One of them, the 21-year-old Szmirer reported after his escape in the Lublin ghetto what was going on inside the  Belzec extermination camp. The 13-year-old  Lejb Wosztejn, who was deported from Zamosc to Belzec, did tell his story as well. Also known are the names of two women, who escaped and were transported to Belzec from Zolkiew: Mina Astman and Malka Thalenfeld. None of these experienced the end of the war.
Their reports were initially received in general with scepticism. In their home-towns at this time anyone could hardly imagine  that the National Socialists were able to such monstrous crimes.
The Polish underground movement in Lublin learned relatively quickly about the death camp at Belzec. Mid-April 1942, they were preparing a report to do so. In it they tried to estimate the number of those murdered at Belzec: "From March 17 to 13 April fifty-two transports (18 to 35 freight cars with an average of 1,500 persons) have arrived in the camp". The authors had detailed information about what was happening in the camp and the conduct of the camp staff. They knew, among other things, that the guards of the camp stole the property of the murdered in exchange in the villages to procure alcohol. However, they did not know, how and what facilities were used to eliminate people in the camp: "In what method the death of the Jews died in the camp is not known, there are three assumptions: 1.) With electricity, 2) gas, 3) by means of rarefied air, a suction pump.
To 1 - There is no suitable power source.
To 2-There was neither a supply of gas nor the interaction of gas residues by ventilation of the gasification chamber observed. Belzec angewandt wurden. kamen durch sie auch in Sobibor zum Tragen. Belzec angewandt wurden,
To 3- This assumption is contrary to anything. However, it is confirmed that the construction of walls and floors, a barrack, was covered with a thick sheet metal (probably for a particular purpose ") (57)
Ref :57-This report also gives a hint that a track of a narrow gauge railway did lead from the building of the so-called laundry room to the graves, with which the bodies were brought into the mass graves which existed indeed during the first phase of exterminations. This was dismantled in the summer of 1942. The Polish underground also knew the name and rank of the camp commandant Wirth. The report shows that the members of the underground movement gathered their Information also among the railway workers and inhabitants of Belzec. They have had also contact with the first builders on the camp site. Compare also: Explorers of the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and by the secret government agency in the country and the Home Army in: Zeszyty Majdanka 14 (1992), page 39-60.
The first phase of the extermination in the Belzec camp ended on 16 April 1942. On this day, the camp commandant Christian Wirth went with some of his men for six weeks to Berlin to report to the Chancellery of the Führer(i.e Adolf Hitler sic) to report of the work at Belzec. A week before his departure, Victor Brack from the Chancellery of the Führer, who had previously significantly  co-ordinated the euthanasia campaign, had visited Belzec. The SS men and staff were on military matters reporting and responsible to the SS and Police Leader in Lublín, Odilo Globocnik. In personnel matters, however, the Chancellery of the Führer retained the responsibility for the former employees of Aktion T4. Some men of the camp staff were transferred during Wirth's absence to the Sobibor extermination camp, which was built at this time in Wlodawa. The building methods and lay-out which were applied in March and April 1942 in Belzec came through and had a bearing at Sobibor. The establishment of the locally improved gas chambers were essentially based on the involvement of SS-men from Belzec with Lorenz Hackenbolt at the top. Until the second half of May 1942 no transports to Belzec took place, the camp was only guarded by a detachment of Trawniki men.


                                                                                                                                continued under Part 4

BELZEC Extermination Camp part 2

CAMP MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY
The Polish workers were working until Christmas 1941 at the construction of the extermination camp. At that time, SS First Lieutenant Christian Wirth arrived , he was the first commander of the camp in Belzec, was a skilled carpenter who had been working since 1913 in the police service. From 1939 he was involved in the Nazi Euthanasia-Program, during 1940 he was appointed "Inspector" of all Euthanasia Installations (Anstalten). After completion of the "Action T4" in August 1941  he moved like many others to the "Reinhardt Operation". His first step upon arrival at the camp was the release of Polish workers, he replaced them with Trawniki men and a group of 120-150 Jews, who had been arrested in the neighboring township of Lubycza Krolewska. These people had to finish the construction work at the camp. The reason for the dismissal of Polish workers may have been the growing rumors about the intended use of the new camp. How much did the population of Belzec at that time knew about the camp is difficult to assess. In any case, the Germans, who were employed in police formations or in the civil service administration in the region, the future use of the place was known. Janusz Peter, who before and during the war was chief doctor at the hospital in Tomaszow Lubelski, he collected for the Polish underground information about the camp: "The Germans built barracks and were planning to do something mysterious, none of the inhabitants of Belzec could look inside the fenced-off square, as visibility was prevented by closely planted pine trees.(spruces). The inhabitants rhymed different things together, he wrote after the war in its local history chronicle... for example, that there is an experimental station being built as the barracks were lined inside with sheet metal, or to combat diseases, a hosiery factory or a hospital for frostbite or something similar. Only when on the corners of the quadrangle watchtowers were set up, they realized that a detention camp was in the making. The  same watchtowers could be seen when you drove along the road to Majdanek near Lublin. For this reason, every inhabitant of Belzec or farmer from Zylka or other location stayed away from the threatening wires, more so when signs in German, Polish and Ukrainian language went up, after which it was forbidden under pain of death to approach the fence".

Belzec remains of the fence

Fence posts and logs at Belzec

Even before the start of the camp,  Christian Wirth ordered ten SS-men from Germany to Belzec who should form the camp staff. They had been previously involved at the Euthanasia "Action T4"  facilities(Anstalt) in Bernburg. Gottfried Schwarz was Wirths deputy in the camp, Josef Oberhauswer his "right hand" and the next assistant. (29)
[Ref:29, during the trial of Oberhauser he denied the allegation, that he had been adjutant of Wirth. He described himself as the closest collaborator(Mitarbeiter) of the camp commander and also as liaison officer between Belzec and the staff of Globocnik in Lublin, Statement Joseph O., 15/09/1960, in ibid, B 162/208. Oberhauser trial, Volume 6, page 1038].

Probably at this time was an engine of a Soviet tank dismantled, and transported to the camp. Wirth, who was known for trying out various methods of killing, experimented and tried since 1942, before the commissioning of the annihilation camp, methods of killing with gas. His subordinates Siegfried Graetschuss and Lorenz Hackenbolt, both by profession truck drivers and car mechanics converted a post delivery bus into a mobile gas chamber. Wirth selected patients from the villages within the vicinity of Belzec. From the village of Teniatyska, the Germans deported for example, five physically or mentally disabled persons. The villagers found out after some time that their relatives were taken to Belzec. Also during this time political prisoners were killed, in one instance for example from the prison which was  nearly  44 kilometers away at  Zamosec were taken to Belzec. Wirth probably experimented at this time also with cyanide(Blausäure) as a killing agent.
Even before the start of the camp about 60 guards were transferred from Trawniki, over time this number has doubled but these were were used to dig mass graves at first in the camp grounds. They were recruited from a large group of Soviet prisoners of war from the Ukraine. In order to save their lives, they consented to a transfer to the German side and were trained in the Trawniki SS training camp in which they were under the jurisdiction of SS and Police Leader in Lublin district, Odilo Globocnik. Their task was only at  first was to watch the ghettos, labor camps and military installations. With the beginning of "Operation Reinhard", ie from March 1942 they were used also during the deportation actions in some places and to guard convoys of the deported Jews to extermination camps. They also represented a significant portion of the security services in the Belzec extermination camp, and later in the death camps of Sobibor and Treblinka. Although the local population usually described them as "Ukrainians", there were also Russians and representatives of other ethnicities of the former Soviet Union, like Volga German(Wolga-Deutsche)or ethnic Germans from the Ukraine that acted as a translators and led divisions of Trawnikis-for example Christian Schmidt, who commanded a guard platoon at Belzec and at the same acted as translator. He was particular known for his peculiar cruelty. Another Soviet citizens of German origin was Karol Trautwein, who interpreted in the camp between the guards and the Germans.
Among them at Belzec were also a Georgian and a Bulgarian. Most Trawniki men spoke no German. The guard company at Belzec was divided into platoons, each of which was commanded by an ethnic German from the Soviet Union, who's German was sufficient to lead.
Between the population of Belzec and the Trawniki men contacts quickly developed that deepened when the first transports arrived in Belzec. The Trawniki men left more or less regularly and sneaked out of the camp and smuggled stolen Jewish property, which they exchanged with the local populations for alcohol or "love services". Former residents  reported contacts and intimate relationships with women that arrived from other villages as a convenient method for desirable goods in exchange for their "services". For alcohol, they had paid twice the retail price. Payment was made in Polish or foreign currencies or valuables that had been stolen. The Trawniki men were also among the first source of information about the crimes in the camp. Officially these contacts were banned, but visits among the Trawniki men in Belzec and environment was a matter of everyday life. The barracks of them were searched regularly. When they were caught leaving the camp without authorisation, they received 25 lashes. Some of them were shot as a penalty for smuggling out of valuables from the camp.

 Belzec Trawniki SS and one ethnic German on the right. Most likely a (Volksdeutscher). Neither of them does have the obligatory "Hoheitsabzeichen"(Eagle with Swastika) on their caps, only their own insignia, thus not part of any part of the German Armed Forces 

BEGINNING OF MASS MURDERS
The first victims, that were killed in the gas chambers of Belzec were the Jewish workers from Lubycza Krolewska. This was probably for testing purposes in late February or early March 1942, about two weeks before the arrival of the first transport into the camp. One of the Jewish workers could watch from a hiding place in the camp, what had happened to his colleagues. After his escape, he retold the people of Belzec and the Jews from the village of Lubycza Krolewska what went on. A witness to his comments recalls. "In February 1942, the Germans from camp Belzec approached the chairman of the Jewish community in a bid to provide a dozen or so Jews for a Work Detail. (Arbeitseinsatz) They emphasized that they should bring with them spoons.and utensils. The Germans took little more than twenty Jews from Lubycza Krolewska and brought them by car to the camp at Belzec. One of the Jews, who was there, told me that they had to cut down pine trees several days in the camp, then herded them all into a barrack, but he managed to get free and hide. From his hiding place he heard the Jews screaming in the barrack for a few seconds, and then it was quiet, one must assume that this was the first attempt in  killing Jews in Belzec. I then heard that the Germans later caught the fleeing Jew and killed him".(36)Ref: 36:Statement Mieczyslaw Kudyba, 14.10.1945, in: APMM, photocopies, sign.1284, OKBL, Ds.1604/45 investigation files to the crimes in the death camp at Belzec.

Jewish work detail at Belzec

The trains stopped at the Belzec station and went from there onto a side track and dependent on the length of the train, were separated  in two or three parts of 15 to 20 cars and shunted singly onto the ramp. At the beginning  the Polish railway workers were not allowed into the camp. The German station master Rudolf Göckel, who was also responsible for documenting the transport lists, took over the train at the Belzec railway station and drove it into the camp. Later on, Polish railway workers were permitted out of necessity to attend the trains towards the camp, however, the SS men stayed with them so that they could not have a thorough look around to  what actually was going on. They were for all intense and purposes under the supervision of the station master Göckel at all times.

Jews arriving at Belzec

On the ramp they drove the people out of the freight cars and ordered them to leave their luggage behind. Overseeing the procedure was led by the camp commander and two or three SS men. During the first transports Wirth oversaw the complete annihilation process from the moment in which the cars were driven to the ramp and got the people out, until the time when the bodies were pulled out of the gas chambers, Wirth led in person by example, how, with cruelly they had to deal with these victims. On his orders, all transports should continue to be treated this way. His brutality and vulgarity also left at the SS camp staff and the Trawniki men marks, who called him "the wild Christian" or "Stuka". Disobedience of his subordinates, Wirth responded with violence. Wirth said that he threatened a few SS men with death who had asked Berlin for a transfer from Bezec. In the sources available there are no indications, however, that any SS-Man from Belzec was transferred upon his request to the Front or returned to the Reich. (39)
Ref: 39: Josef Oberhauser statement,13.12.1962 and statement Hans Girtzig 15.1.1963, in: StA Munich, StanW 33033/11, the trial against Josef Oberhauser, page 2438 and 2471
   When unloading the transports Trawniki men were also present, who would quickly drive people out of the cars. Later on Jewish prisoners worked there, who would help, especially those who's own strength were not able to do so. In addition, they moved the bodies from the transports, deceased persons that had died during the long train journeys who had succumbed to sickness or of old age. They also gathered the luggage of the deportees and stacked them first along the railway track. Initially the host (Lt. Wirth) did welcome incoming Jews with a speech that should have served their peace of mind. It said that they had came into a transit camp and would be after a bath and disinfection sent to a labor camp. The speech was probably by one of the Jewish prisoners, translated into Polish. Then the SS divided them into groups of 60-80 people who were led into the undressing barrack. From there they were driven out in a naked state through the "tube"(Schlauch) into the gas chambers. All this took place in an atmosphere of brutality and under constant driving. Victims should have no time to think about what would happen to them and not be able to fight back. The division into groups of 60 to 80 people took place only with the first transports. Later, the groups have been greater after the Germans wanted to accelerate the process quickly and efficiently. According to SS-men, the groups that came in the first phase of the camp in total was never greater than 400 to 500 people at any time,  since the pick- capacity(Aufnahmevermögen) was limited at the undressing barracks and the gas chambers were of a primitive type in the early days.(Ref.:41,Statement Karl Schluch,10.11.1961,in:ibid,page 1166)

In the Undressing Barrack, which was separated between the sexes, men, women and children, there was a place, were the deportees had to deposit their money and valuables. Former members of the SS guards(Lagermannschaft) later testified that the victims had been issued with a receipt. It is possible that these were 4 to 5 cm (Centimetre) large cement discs with punched-in high numbers on them, of which a few dozens were found during excavations at the former camp grounds in the years 1993-2000 and 2002-2004 and are now on display as part of the permanent exhibition of the Memorial to Berlzec.
First, the men were driven through the "tube" into the gas chambers. Meanwhile, the women were in the undressing barrack and had their hair cut off, then they were herded into the gas chamber barrack as well. On both sides of the "tube" were Trawniki guards that drove them through this narrow path  and not seldom used whips, rifle butts, or  sticks, there was an SS-man on duty, who should be supervising the whole operation. In the first phase of camp, this was Karl Schluch. Despite the primitive equipment, the gas chambers resembled a washing room and, therefore no negative associations with anything else crossed the minds of the victims. On the ceiling were - with great difficulty dummy shower heads installed, (42) to the end, the victim remained in the dark about their fate.. Ref: 42, Erich Fuchs testified after the war, he had told Wirth that it was not without difficulties to attach dummy shower heads to be mounted without any special installation on the ceiling. Wirth, then had him whipped and threatened to have him shot. Ultimately, the installation was built. Statement by Erich Fuchs, 28.5.1963, in ibid, page 2644f.
If all people were in the gas chamber, Lorenz Hackenholt locked together with an Ukrainian guard all the doors and started the engine. Some witnesses recall that the engine was running only for four to five minutes, others have reported up to 20 minutes. In the beginning you could hear the screams of the victims who died one by one. Then Hackenholt examined using a peep-hole, if all people were dead in the chambers. The Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommndo then opened the doors and pulled out the bodies of those murdered. Often they had to separate mutual bodies, which had entwined in their last agony. The corpses were soiled by urine, faeces and menstrual blood. Some were lying on the floor, the rest were intertwined and still standing up. A Jewish prisoner called the "Dentist",(Zahnarzt) after the bodies were pulled out, removed the rings from her fingers and pulled out gold teeth, which were packed into cartons. (43)
Ref: 43, Karl Schluch's statement 11.10.1961, in: ibid, page 1167f. Polish witnesses mentioned during investigations in 1945 that the extermination process could take even longer in the gas chambers. The information they had received from the guards in the camp. Statements by Edward Luczynski, 15/10/1945, and Alojzy Berezowski, 12/04/1946, in APMM, photocopies, Sign 1284, OKBL, Ds.1604/45. Luczynski had first hand information. The guard Wlasiuk, who operated the gas chambers together with Hackenbolt had told him personally, how the gassings was ran.

                                                                                          continued under Part 3