Belzec Was Chosen as the First Killing Center

The decision to murder all Jews under German control was made (by Himmler and Heydrich) and approved (by G;ring and Hitler) sometime in August of 1941 (at roughly the same time Himmler ordered to extend “Holocaust by Bullets” to all Jews, including woman, children and elderly).

At the end of August, after Aktion T4 was terminated and its personnel became available for a much larger extermination project, the decision was made (by the same characters) and approved (ditto) to achieve this diabolical objective with a radically scaled-up reincarnation of Aktion T4 (involuntary euthanasia program).

In practice, it meant construction of six functionally similar killing centers (death factories) albeit with much, much higher capacity and performance. In roughly the same time span – two years or so – these six centers were to kill 100 times more (over 7 million versus 70,000).

After the possible opposition to the “Holocaust by Gas” by the Pope Pius XII was neutralized sometime in mid-September of 1941, Heydrich could now start working on choosing the optimal locations for these six killing centers.

For the “pilot project” Chelmno/Kulmhof was chosen in October (see below) … however for the sake of simplicity, it was to be equipped only with mobile gas chambers (gas vans).

Hence, another pilot project was needed – the death factory with stationary gas chambers (similar to the ones of Aktion T4 gas chambers but with a much, much larger capacity).

Although experimental gassing (using Zyklon B) already happened at Auschwitz, it appeared that this option was rejected. Rejected for a number of reasons: Zyklon B was considered way too toxic and thus too difficult to handle (for now); a dedicated death factory (killing center) was needed… and it had to be located in General Government (Auschwitz stood on the land annexed into the Reich).

Ultimately, the strategically located village of Belzec was chosen as the site for this next pilot project. It was situated between the two major cities in the southeastern part of Poland: Lublin 76 km to the northwest – and Lw;w (now Lviv in Ukraine).

The city of Lublin became the hub of the early Nazi transfer of about 95,000 German, Austrian, and Polish Jews expelled from the West and the General Government area.

The Jews were put to work in the construction of anti-tank ditches (Burggraben) along the German-Soviet border. Which came very handy after the killing center commenced its operations.

Belzec was chosen for several reasons: it sat on the border between the Lublin District and the German District of Galicia formed after Operation Barbarossa. Thus, it could “process” the Jews of both regions.

The ease of transportation was secured by the railroad junction at nearby Rawa-Ruska and the highway between Lublin-Stadt and Lemberg (Lwow). The northern boundary of the planned killing center consisted of an anti-tank trench constructed a year earlier.

The ditch, excavated originally for military (anti-tank) purposes was subsequently used as the first mass grave. Globocnik brought in Obersturmf;hrer Richard Thomalla who was a civil engineer by profession and the camp construction expert in the SS. Work had commenced in early November 1941, using local builders overseen by a squad of Trawniki guards.

There was, however, a purely supernatural reason for choosing Belzec as a killing center – close proximity to Lublin (Majdanek and Sobibor were chosen for the same reason).

Some SS mystics (yes, it was a highly mystical organization) considered Lublin to be Jewish spiritual center… in the whole world. Hence, establishment of three death factories (intended specifically for killing Jews) in close proximity would inevitably destroy this center… and thus the whole “Jewish race”.

According to one conspiracy theory, Lublin was the site of headquarters of Church of Moloch that essentially took over the Jewish people almost two millennia ago and used it in its attempts to take over the entire world (Protocols-style).

And that the whole objective of “Operation Reinhard” was to destroy this Church… by murdering all Polis Jews. No evidence that would support this conspiracy theory has ever surfaced.

The three commandants of the camp including Kripo officers SS-Sturmbannf;hrer Christian Wirth and SS-Hauptsturmf;hrer Gottlieb Hering, had been involved in Aktion T4 program since 1940 – as well as most of camp staff.

Wirth had the leading position as the supervisor of all six extermination hospitals in the Reich; Hering was the non-medical chief of the Sonnenstein gassing facility in Saxony as well as at the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre.

Wirth had been a killing expert from the beginning as participant of the first T-4 gassing of handicapped people at the Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre. He was, therefore, an obvious choice to be the first commandant of the first death factory that used stationary gas chambers.

It was his proposal to use the exhaust gas emitted by the internal-combustion engine (of captured Soviet T-34-76 tank – of all vehicles) as the killing agent instead of the bottled carbon monoxide as it was much cheaper and much more readily available.

Wirth chose the stationary gas chamber (functionally similar to those in Aktion T4 killing centers) because he calculated that the capacity of mobile gas vans used at Che;mno killing center was insufficient for the projected number of victims on trains arriving at the Belzec death factory.

All arriving Jews disembarked from the trains at a platform in the reception zone. To ready themselves for the disinfecting shower (standard ruse in a killing center), women and children were separated from men.

The naked new arrivals were then forced to run along a fenced-off path to the gas chambers, leaving them no time to absorb where they were. The process was conducted as quickly as possible amid constant screaming by the Germans.

The wooden gas chambers—which were built with double walls that were insulated by earth packed between them—were disguised as the shower barracks, so that the victims would not realize the true purpose of the facility.

The gassing itself, which took about 30 minutes, was conducted by a German operator with the Ukrainian guards and a Jewish aide. Removing the bodies from the gas chambers, burying them, sorting and repairing the victims’ clothing for shipping was performed by Jewish Sonderkommando work-details.

Most Jews from the latter were murdered periodically and replaced by new arrivals, so that they would neither organize a revolt nor survive to tell about the camp’s purpose.

The “Wirth solution” was far less humane than the one used in Aktion T4: due to low levels of CO in exhaust fumes and problems with the fuel and with the engine, the killing process, using the lethal carbon monoxide, often failed to be completed quickly, inflicting horrific suffering on the victims as they suffocated to death.