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| Belzec was opened on November 1st 1941. Belzec was
built in Poland, as a part of the Aktion Reinhard Program. The Nazis
built Belzec to exterminate the entire race of Jews and Gypsies located in
Eastern Europe. The program Aktion Reinhard was originally
named after Reinhold Heydrich. Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler
were the ones that came up with the idea of the operation. Operation
Reinhard was issued as a new way of mass murder. Himmler replaced the mobile
killing units with death factories and gas chambers. Gas chambers
were first used in March of 1942. Belzec started out as a labor camp
in April 1940. |
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| The Nazis used numerous ways of exterminating Jews.
During the time Belzec as opened to the time it was closed, over 80,000 Jews
were killed. The S.S. officers would split the thousand of people
into groups. The different groups would be put to death in different ways.
Jews were told to stand out in a line and be prepared to get shot. The
people at the end of the line had to se family members get shot while
awaiting their death also. Jews wee forced to run through a small forest
where the Nazis would hid in and force the Jews to run through the forest
and they were going to get shot. Also Jews were force to do labor,
then were killed in numerous ways. For example, many Jews and Gypsies were told to dig a ditch and would soon
be buried alive.
Many Jews were also forced t dig a big ditch, and about 60 Jews at a time
were told to lie down and a S.S. officer would toss a hand grenade.
Body parts would fly everywhere, and strong Jewish men were forced to
remove the corpses. |
Here is a picture of Christian Wirth
(Center)
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| Christian Wirth was born in November 1885, and was trained
as a kid to be an officer. He was the first commander of
Belzec. Wirth served in World War 1 where he was awarded a medal for
his bravery. Hitler called Wirth to start the gas chambers because
Wirth would supply the gas chambers with carbon monoxide. As the
Jews came into the camp on a train, Wirth would speak to them all and he
had tricked them into thinking they were in a transit camp. The Jews
ere not to know that later in this camp they would be tortured or brutally
killed. Wirth, like Hitler, treated the S.S. officers horribly.
Here is what one of Wirth's S.S. officers Werner Dubois said, " Wirth
was more than brutal, in my opinion his brutality was grounded more in his
human nature than in his mentality. He bellowed, screamed and hit
members of the German garrison in the face. There was no one at camp
Belzec not afraid of Wirth." Wirth disappeared in June of ,1942
and went to Berlin. Since Wirth ran away, Gottieb Hering soon
took over Belzec. Hitler and Wirth made all German soldiers make a promise
to them before the operation began. This promise read," I
promise to keep my word to the best of my ability. I understand that
after completion of my service this oath will still apply." The
Belzec camp was close in the spring of 1943. A year later Wirth was
killed in a street fight in Yugoslavia. |
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| Again, during the time Belzec was opened over 80,000 Jews
were killed. Belzec was one of the smallest least detected killing
centers at the time. There was only a hand full that survived the
torture at camp. One of the survivors said of Wirth," he was a
tall, broad shouldered man in his middle forties with a vulgar face.
He was a born criminal, the extreme beast." The Nazis believed that
they could erase all evidence that there was ever a camp called
Belzec. Finally the camp closed in the Spring of 1943. |