Hitlerowski obóz śmierci w Bełżcu

Abstract

The camp in Belzec was the Nazi centre of immediate extermination on Jewish population. The factors that determined this place to be an extermination camp of Jews were the geographical location, convenient transport network, a long distance from larger urban agglomerations and above all relatively close position of places inhabited by people intended for extermination. Belzec camp was not a concentration camp, it was only a machine to put Jewish people to death. This camp had also an experimental character, it tested how many people could be exterminated and how much time it took. From 17 March 1942 to spring 1943 at least 600 thousand people were killed in gas chambers. It was a tremendous death factory being in the pay of the German Reich. The camp was meant to disappear from sight but never from memory. After years Poles, who so often risked their lives to rescue Jews, erected a Mausoleum in 2004 commemorating the extermination.