The gassing at Belzec began in March 1942 under the supervision of its first commandant, Christian Wirth he decided to supply the fixed gas chamber with gas produced by the internal-combustion engine of a motorcar. He used universally available gasoline and diesel fuel. He worked on the “euthanasia” gassings which ended up at Belzec. Belzec was designed to gas Jews and were under Globocnik's supervision, he commanded 20-30 SS men and over 100 Ukrainians.
The gassing experts lived separately from the other SS and police, and they were not carried on the list of Globocnik's regular troops. Before gas chambers were constructed, there was plenty that Globocnik could do with more traditional methods of killing. In October 1941 Captain Klein Schmidt, the company leader of a transport unit, came to the barracks in Lublin and ordered fifteen men to go with him. Each of the fifteen was given a truck and had to drive it to the concentration camp nearby. There they loaded about forty Jews on each of the fifteen trucks giving a total of about 600 Jews. These Jews were carried them to an abandoned airport located about twenty-five miles from Belzec. The prisoners had to dig ditches six cubic meters in size. After finishing the ditches, ten of the victims took off their clothes and were given corrugated-paper shirts reaching halfway down the thighs. The bottoms of the ditches were lined with straw. The victims were ordered, ten at a time, to lie in the ditches, alternately head to foot. Then Globocnik's men threw hand grenades into the ditches, and heads, arms, and legs quickly filled the air. The troops shot anyone still moving after the explosion. Then they spread lime over the remains, and a new layer of straw was spread on top of the lime. Three or four layers of bodies, ten in each layer, were placed in such a grave. During the executions the other victims had to watch and await their turn. These graves are still being discovered in the all areas around Poland and near Belzec, death camp. “Globocnik’s men kicked women in the stomach and children smashed against rocks.” Globocnik's men killed approximately seventy-five thousand Jews in this general manner.
A German officer reported in mid-September 1942 how Jews were rounded up in their villages and packed into each cattle car, around 200 in each. The journey to the Belzec death camp sometimes took more than a day but no food or water was provided. Throughout the passage, Jews constantly tried to break out through the walls and ceiling of the train cars. Many succeeded but were shot by soldiers guarding the train or hunted down by police units. On several occasions, the train guards used up all their ammunition shooting escaping Jews before the train reached Belzec and had to resort to stones.
There were 40-60 rail trucks, holding about 2-2,500 Jews, would arrive at Belzec station. It would be divided into two or three smaller convoys which would be pushed into the camp. The Jews would then be rapidly disembarked onto the platform where they were assured that they had arrived at a death camp .At arrival in Belzec men were separated from women and children and marched off to large huts where they undressed. Women had their hair shaven off. They were then brutally pushed to the gas chambers which were disguised as 'showers'.
Initially, there were three gas chambers using carbon monoxide housed in a wooden building. They were later replaced by six gas chambers in a brick and concrete building. Carbon monoxide gas from diesel engines was pumped in to kill the victims, but in August 1942 Zyklon-B, the quick-acting hydrogen cyanide gas, was first demonstrated at Belzec. An SS officer, one Lieutenant Gerstein left a description of conditions in Belzec. He described how the Jews were packed into the gas chamber so tight they could not move. "Up till then people were alive in these chambers - four times 750 people in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes went by. True, many were now dead. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. At last after 32 minutes, everyone was dead," Gerstein wrote. "Finally, all were dead like pillars of basalt, still erect, not having any place to fall."
Teams of Jewish laborers who had been selected from earlier transports then removed the corpses and dragged them to burial pits. Other Jewish workers removed gold teeth from the bodies.
When the camp was finally liquidated by the Nazis in December 1942, those who lived still were transported to Sobibor death camp and murdered.
The testimony of SS-Unterscharführer Schluch, In the Belzec-Oberhauser trial.
Quoted in "BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps", Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987, p. 70-71:
“After leaving the undressing barracks, I had to show the Jews the way to the gas chambers. I believe that when I showed the Jews the way they were convinced that they were really going to the baths. After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the doors were closed by Hackenholt himself or by the Ukrainians subordinated to him. Then Hackenholt switched on the engine which supplied the gas...
I could see that the lips and tips of the noses were a bluish color. Some of them had their closed, other's eyes rolled. The bodies were dragged out of the gas chambers and inspected by a dentist, who removed finger rings and gold teeth...”
A map of Belzec
1. Road south from Lublin city and Tomaszow town had steady car and truck traffic, so that hundreds of travelers a day had a good view of the alleged Belzec camp area.
2. Main rail line passed through Belzec rail station 1/2 kilometer (1/4 mile) north and Belzec town 1.5 km (1 mile) north.
3. A forest of thick trees, which covered the hillside in 1940, was cut before March, 1944. In relation to today's logging methods, using chainsaws, skidders to move the logs, and trucks, in 1940 it most likely took 3 seasons, from 1941 to '43, to log the hillside using axes to cut and trim the trees and horses to move the logs.
4. Farmhouses along road in valley across from the hillside logging camp had a clear view of the entire area.
5. Cleared path over what may have been a water pipe.
6. Short rail spur.
7. Two buildings that appear to have been small sawmills where the cut logs were sawn into rough lumber, however the actual use of these buildings is unknown.
8. Alleged 1943 murder camp between the railway spur and ridge top (see number 10) was actually a 250 by 250 meter (800 by 800 foot) 1940 to '44 hillside logging camp.
9. Alleged gas chamber location where 2,400 per day, or 200 per hour for a 12 hour day, (600,000 total), were supposedly murdered in 1942, was on the side of the hill visible to Belzec town residents, farmers, road travelers, or spies in the valley, so that murder of even one person a day would have been seen by many people. There are no visible scars from previous cement building foundations.
10. Ridge at top of hill leading to Lysa mountain 1 kilometer southeast, had tree stumps and roots that would have made it impossible, using picks, shovels, and horses, to bury even a fraction of the alleged 2,400 bodies per day. Comparing the amount of space the Katyn graves occupied, only 12,000 bodies, or 1/50th of the alleged 600,000 corpses, could have been buried in the described area.
11. It's alleged in winter from Nov. 42 to Feb. '43, 4,500 bodies per day were dug up, but digging up 4,500 frozen bodies per day in frozen earth at the top of the hill would have been impossible. Even if the Germans had employed many thousands of workers, only a fraction of this number could have been exhumed. At Katyn the Germans waited from when they found the graves in February, 1943, until the ground thawed in April, to dig up about 130 bodies a day using local laborers.
12. Its alleged 4,500 frozen corpses per day were burned on large fires; however this would have been impossible as open cremations consume many times the amount of fuel as closed cremation chambers (about 120 kg of coal or wood per body) and corpse’s burn very slowly in open air. Even if hundreds of tons of wood or coal a day had been transported to the hilltop, and 2 or 3 thousand workers had piled corpses on the fires, only a small percentage of the alleged 4,500 a day could have been cremated.
13. Heavily worn path in the soil appears to have been a skid for sliding logs downhill to the rail cars.
14. Rail cars.
A woman about to be executed in Belzec extermination camp.
The soldier on the left is a SS guard; the soldiers in the background are Ukrainian guards. Picture found on a SS prisoner
Gypsies in Belzec before being sent to the gas chamber.