76 Belzec (Holocaust: Reinhard)
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This article is from the Holocaust FAQ, by Ken McVay kmcvay@nizkor.org with numerous contributions by others.
76 Belzec (Holocaust: Reinhard)
The first camp, Belzec, was located on the Lublin - Lvov railroad
line, and built between November 1941 and March of 1942. The
killing, of Jews from Krakow and Lvov districts, began on March 17,
1942. (Note: Breitman states that the first SS men showed up at
Belzec in October of 1941, to begin recruitment of laborers for
construction.
See http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/orgs/israeli/yad-vashem/yvs16.03 for
construction details.)
Breitman:
"Belzec was the first pure extermination camp to begin operations in
the region. There were only a few hundred worker Jews there (at a
time), most used in the killing facilities or in the recovery of
clothing and items of value from the dead. The first SS men showed
up at Belzec in October 1941 to recruit construction workers to build
the facilities. Himmler's office had reported Globocnik's progress
to Oswald Pohl, head of what soon became the SS
Economic-Administrative Main Office (WVHA), preparing Pohl for
cooperation with Globocnik. Pohl's office had reported to Himmler
that it could no longer obtain sufficient clothing or textiles for
the Waffen-SS and the concentration camps. Himmler replied that he
could make available a large mass of raw materials for clothing, and
he gave Globocnik responsibility for delivering them. <On Belzec,
see Adalbert Ru"ckerl, ed., "NS Vernichtungslager im Spiegel
deutscher Strafprozesse," (Munich, 1978), 132-45; Hilberg,
"Destruction," III, 875-76. Brandt's daily log, with telephone calls
15 Oct., to Pohl, report on Globocnik; 17 Oct., to Pohl, report on
Globocnik; 20 Oct., to Pohl, work with Globocnik, all NA RG 242,
T-581/R 39A. On the nature of the cooperation and the textiles,
interrogation of Georg Loener, 20 Sept. 1947, NA RG 238, M-1019/R
42/946. Loener dated these events "approximately 1941." Brandt's log
notations (see above) pin this down to Oct. 1941. Arad, "Belzec,
Sobibor, Treblinka," 24-25.> Their owners were not likely to object.
The gassing at Belzec began in March 1942 under the supervision of
its first commandant, Christian Wirth. Ninety-one others from the
Fu"hrer Chancellery who had worked with him on euthanasia gassings
ended up at Belzec, Sobibor, or Treblinka -- all of which were
designed to gas Jews and were under Globocnik's supervision. The
gassing experts lived separately from the other SS and police, and
they were not carried on the list of Globocnik's regular troops.
(Arad, "Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka," 24-25, 17. Interrogation of
Johann Sporrenberg, 2 Sept. 1945, Globocnik file, U.S. Army
Intelligence and Security Command, obtained through Freedom of
Information Act.)
Before gas chambers were constructed, there was plenty that Globocnik
could do with more traditional methods of killing. In October 1941
Captain Kleinschmidt, 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 thirty on each of
the fifteen trucks -- a total of about 450 Jews -- and carried them
to an abandoned airport located approximately twenty-five miles from
Lublin. 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. Women were kicked in the stomach
and breasts, children smashed against rocks. According to an
eyewitness to this particular episode, Globocnik's men killed
approximately seventy-five thousand Jews in this general manner.
(Commanding General, Eighth Service Command, ASF Dallas, to Provost
Marshal, 21 May 1945, account of Willi Kempf, POW, NA RG 153, entry
143, box 571, folder 19-99.) Apart from the sadistic killings by
hand, it was about as far as one could go in streamlining the process
of mass murder without more advanced technology. (Breitman, 198-201)
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