Belzec Extermination Camp - Camp Construction and Purposes

Camp Construction and Purposes

Belzec was situated in the Lublin district forty-seven miles north of the major city of Lviv (Lvov, Lwow), conveniently between the large Jewish populations of German-occupied southeast Poland and eastern Galicia. Belzec extermination camp, the model for two others in the Aktion Reinhard murder program, started as a labor camp in April 1940, in the course of the Burggraben-project attached to the Lublin reservation in the same area: the reservation was to serve as a pool for forced labour exploited by various small camps like Belzec, to erect defensive works along the German Nazi-Soviet demarcation line such as a long anti-tank ditch. While the Burggraben project was shut down by the end of the year due to its inefficiency, Belzec was re-opened in 1942 to finish part of the anti-tank ditch.

On 13 October 1941, Heinrich Himmler gave SS and Police Leader Lublin, SS Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, two orders which were closely connected with each other: to start Germanizing the area around Zamość and to start work on the first German Nazi extermination camp in the General Government near Bełżec. The site was chosen for three reasons: it was situated at the border between the districts Lublin and Galicia, thus indicating its purpose to serve as a killing site for the Jews of both districts; for reasons of transport it lay next to the railroad and the main road between Lublin and Lvov; the northern boundary of the planned death camp was the anti-tank ditch dug a year before by Jewish slave workers of the former forced labour camp. The ditch, originally excavated for military reasons, was likely to serve as the first mass grave. Globocnik's construction expert SS Obersturmführer Richard Thomalla commenced work in early November 1941, using Polish villagers, Globocnik's Trawniki men and, later, Jewish slave workers. The installation was finished by early March 1942 - the camp then started to turn from a labour to a killing camp as envisioned in the Wannsee Conference.