Bełżec Museum Memorial Site

Operational from March 1942 to December 1942, it was part of Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder the Jews of the General Government – the German-occupied territory of Poland. The camp was situated near the Lublin-Lvov railway line, making it accessible for the transportation of Jews from various regions.

The camp was divided into two zones: an administration-reception zone and a separate area for mass murder, hidden from the view of victims in the reception area. Victims were transported to Belzec in freight cars, often 80 to 100 people per car. Upon arrival, they were forced to undress and run through a narrow enclosed path which led directly into gas chambers. The killings were conducted using carbon monoxide gas generated from a large motor engine.

Belzec’s staff consisted of a small number of German SS and police officials, supplemented by a guard unit of former Soviet prisoners of war, and Ukrainian and Polish civilians trained at the so-called Trawniki (guards recruited in Eastern Europe) training camp. The camp’s commandants included Christian Wirth and Gottlieb Hering, both of whom had experience in the T4 “euthanasia” program.

Approximately 434,500 Jews and an undetermined number of Poles and Roma were deported to Belzec, where they were killed. Most victims were from the Galicia, Krakow, and Lublin districts of the General Government, as well as from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

In late 1942, the SS began the process of dismantling the camp. Jewish forced laborers were used to exhume and burn the bodies in open-air “ovens” made from rail tracks, as part of Operation 1005 to destroy evidence of mass murder. By June 1943, the camp was liquidated, and the remaining Jewish forced laborers were either shot in Belzec or deported to Sobibor to be killed.

Today, the site includes a museum with exhibitions detailing the history of the camp, the process of extermination, and the lives of the victims. The memorial area features a symbolic representation of the camp’s layout and the mass graves.