by Chris Webb
It would be appropriate if the transport of Jews that arrive in the Lublin district were split in the departure stations into those who are able to work and those who are not. If this division is impossible in the departure stations, eventually it should be considered to divide the transport in Lublin, according to the aforementioned point of view.
All the Jews incapable of work would arrive in Belzec, the final border station in the Zamosc region.
Hauptsturmführer Höfle is preparing the erection of a big camp, where the Jews capable of work will be held and divided according to their professions and from where they will be requested for work.
Piaski will be cleared of Polish Jews and will become a concentration point for Jews arriving from the Reich.
In the meantime Trawniki will not be populated by Jews. The Hauptsturmführer asks whether on the train section Deblin-Trawniki 60,000 Jews can be disembarked. After having been informed about the transports of Jews dispatched by us, Höfle announced that out of the 500 Jews who arrived from Suziec, those unable to work can be sorted out and sent to Belzec.
In conclusion, he announced that every day he can receive four to five transports with 1,000 Jews each for the destination of Belzec station. These Jews would cross the border (of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union) and never return to the General-Gouvernement.[59]
This same day, March 16, 1942, saw the first deportation within the framework of Aktion Reinhardt from the Lublin ghetto at Podzamcze to the Belzec death camp. On the night of March 16, 1942, the Germans commenced the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. Those unfit for work—on average 1,500 per day—were sent to the collection point at the Marashal-shul Synagogue, and then subsequently to the Umschlagplatz, (collection–point)—the loading ramp of the Municipal Abattoir in Turytyczna Street.[60]
Daily, the deportations trains departed for the Belzec death camp, and, during the period from mid-March to mid-April 1942, approximately 26,000 Jews were deported, whilst approximately 1,500 Jews were shot on the spot.
Alojzy Berezowski, the Polish station-master of Belzec testified on November 5, 1945, in Belzec, regarding the first transport of Jews to arrive in Belzec:
The first transport of Jews arrived towards evening sometime in March 1942. It consisted of about 15 wagons. This train was taken on to the siding. Later during the evening of the same day, at about 9 o’clock, I heard from outside my house—which was in the station—the dreadful screaming of children, women and men, mingled with occasional rifle fire and machine-gun fire.
How many people arrived on this transport, I cannot specify, only that with my own eyes I calculated that in each wagon there were about 40 people. They were covered wagons.[61]
Victor Skowronek—another local—testified in Belzec on October 16, 1945, although it would appear the date of the first transport to arrive at Belzec death camp was March 17, 1942, which was the official start of Aktion Reinhardt: “The first transport—16 March 1942, in the evening, one heard howls and screams and sporadic shooting.”[62]
SS-Unterscharführer Karl Alfred Schluch, who had served at the T4 institutions at Grafeneck and Hadamar was in Belzec when the mass killings commenced, and he described the process in some detail:
In the morning or noon time we were informed by Wirth, Schwarz or by Oberhauser that a transport with Jews should arrive soon. The disembarkation from the freight cars was carried out by a group of Jewish prisoners under the command of their Kapos. Two or three Germans from the camp staff supervised this action. It was my obligation to carry out such supervision.
After the disembarkation, the Jews were taken to the assembly square. During the disembarkation, the Jews were told that they had come here for transfer and they should go to the baths and disinfection. This announcement was made by Wirth and translated by a Jewish Kapo. Afterwards the Jews were taken to the undressing barracks.[63]
Another member of the SS garrison, Kurt Franz, who was responsible for training the Trawnikimänner at Belzec, testified:
I heard with my own ears how Wirth, in quite convincing voice, explained to the Jews that they would have to be deported further and before that, for hygenic reasons, they must bathe themselves and their clothes would have to be disinfected. Inside the undressing barrack was a counter for the deposit of valuables. It was made clear to the Jews that after the bath their valuables would be returned to them. I can still hear today, how the Jews applauded Wirth after his speech. This behaviour of the Jews convinces me that the Jews believed Wirth.[64]
The Jewish deportees were told to leave their luggage in the yard next to the siding and strip naked, the men in the open and the women inside the undressing barrack. After undressing, the men were taken through the “tube” to the gas chambers first and, after the women had their hair shaven off, they and the children were also led through the “tube” and murdered in the gas chambers. SS-Unterscharführer Karl Alfred Schluch testified at his post-war trial what happened next:
My post in the ‘tube’ was close to the undressing barrack. Wirth briefed me that while I was there I should influence the Jews to behave calmly. After leaving the undressing barracks, I had to show the Jews the way to the gas chambers. I believe that when I showed the Jews the way they were convinced that they were really going to the baths. After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the doors were closed by Hackenholt himself or by the Ukrainians subordinate to him.
Then Hackenholt switched on the engine which supplied the gas. After five or seven minutes—and this is only an estimate—someone looked through the small window into the gas chamber to verify whether all inside were dead. Only then were the outside doors opened and the gas chambers ventilated. After the ventilation of the gas chambers, a Jewish working group under the command of their Kapos entered and removed the bodies from the chambers. Occasionally, I had to supervise at this place; therefore, I can describe the whole process, which I saw and witnessed personally.
The Jews inside the gas chambers were densely packed. This is the reason that the corpses were not lying on the floor but were mixed up in disorder in all directions, some of them kneeling, according to the amount of space they had. The corpses were besmirched with mud, and urine or with spit. I could see that the lips and tips of the noses were a bluish color. Some of them had their eyes closed, others’ eyes rolled.The bodies were dragged out of the gas chambers and inspected by a dentist, who removed finger-rings and gold teeth. After this procedure, the corpses were thrown into a big pit.[65]
The Jews that were unable to proceed to the gas chambers were taken directly to the mass graves and there they were shot. SS-Unterscharführer Robert Juhrs, who had served in the T4 institution in Hadamar, was one of the SS garrison who took part in such shootings, testified:
I had to carry out the shooting of Jews once. In that transport the cars were overloaded; some of the Jews were unable to walk. Maybe, in that confusion, some of the Jews had been pushed down and had been crushed underfoot. Therefore, there were Jews that, by no means, could cover the way to the undressing barrack.
Gottlieb Hering gave me an order to shoot these Jews. He told me verbally: “Juhrs, take these Jews to Camp II immediately and shoot them there.” These Jews were taken to the gate of Camp II by a Jewish working group, and from there they were taken to the pits by other working Jews. As I remember, there were seven Jews, men and women, who were taken inside the pit.
It is hard to describe the condition these people were in, after their long journey in the unimaginly packed freight cars. I regarded the killing of these people in this way as a mercy and redemption. I shot these Jews with a machine-gun as they stood on the edge of the pit. I aimed directly at their heads so that everyone died instantly. I am absolutely sure that nobody felt any torment.[66]
These first transports of Jews to the death camp from the Lublin ghetto saw approximately 30,000 murdered between March 1942 and mid-April. Other transports from within the Lublin district, from Zamosc, and the transit ghettos of Izbica and
Piaski, followed.
On either March 25 or 26, 1942, the first transports to the Belzec death camp came from the Lvov district, namely Zolkiew, quickly followed by mass deportations from Lvov itself, and other places such as Kolomea and Stanislawow.
It was from a transport from Zolkiew that two women, Mina Astman and Malka Talenfeld, escaped from Belzec at the end of March 1942. They managed to record their story on their return to Zolkiew:
In closed wagons they were brought into the Belzec camp. They were ordered to undress. The people became scared. One of them asked the SS man who was close to him: “What’s the reason that we should undress?” Afterward the women were ordered to enter the barrack.... Exploiting the disorder and noise and lack of experience of the Germans Astman and Talenfeld jumped into a nearby ditch and sat there undiscovered until dark. Under cover of darkness they escaped from the camp and after a few days returned home.[67]
During the height of these killings, Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Sobibor death camp, was ordered by Odilo Globocnik to report to Christian Wirth in Belzec. Stangl told the author, Gitta Sereny, that Globocnik had written to Stangl, and that Wirth had been appointed as inspector of camps. But Wirth was not appointed to this post until August 1942, and this visit took place in April 1942. In one of his interviews with Gitta Sereny, in a Düsseldorf prison, Stangl explained:
I went there by car. As one arrived, one first reached Belzec railway station, on the left side of the road. The camp was on the same side, but up a hill. The Kommandantur was 200 metres away on the other side of the road. It was a one–storey building. The smell... oh God, the smell. It was everywhere.
Wirth wasnt in his office. I remember, they took me to him... he was standing on a hill, next to the pits..... the pits... full.... they were full. I can’t tell you; not hundreds, thousands, thousands of corpses... oh God. That’s where Wirth told me—he said that was what Sobibor was for. And that he was putting me officially in charge.[68]
Gitta Sereny, in her book Into That Darkness, which recorded her interviews with Stangl, stated that he gave a slightly different version of the same event:
Wirth wasn’t in his office; they said he was up in the camp. I asked whether I should go up there and they said, “I wouldn’t if I were you—he’s mad with fury. It isn’t healthy to go near him.” I asked what was the matter. The man I was talking to said that one of the pits had overflowed. They had put too many corpses in it and putrefaction had progressed too fast, so that the liquid underneath had pushed the bodies on top and over and the corpses had rolled down the hill. I saw some of them—oh God, it was awful. A bit later Wirth came down. And that is when he told me. I said to Wirth “I couldn’t do it“, he said, “I simply wasnt up to such an assignment. There wasn’t any argument or discussion. Wirth just said my reply would be reported to HQ and I was to go back to Sobibor.[69]
Josef Oberhauser recalled that in late April / early May 1942, Wirth, Schwarz, and almost the entire German personnel left Belzec:
Before Wirth left his last official duty was to shoot or gas the fifty or so work-Jews of the camp including the Kapos. When Wirth and his staff left, I was in Lublin, where I was organizing the transport of a large amount of material. When I came back to Belzec there was no one left apart from about twenty Ukrainians guarding the place. The Ukrainian guards were under the supervision of SS-Scharführer Feix.
Curiously, even SS- und Polizeiführer Globocnik did not know anything about Wirth and his staff’s departure. When he found out that Wirth had disaapeared, he sent me to Belzec to find out where he had gone. I found out that he had travelled to Berlin, via Lemberg and Krakow without informing Globocnik of his departure.
At the beginning of May 1942 SS-Oberführer Brack from the Führer Chancellery suddenly came to Lublin. With Globocnik he discussed resuming the extermination of the Jews. Globocnik said he had too few people to carry out this programme. Brack stated that the Euthanasia programme had stopped and that the people from T4 would from now on be detailed to him on a regular basis so that the decisions taken at the Wannsee conference could be implemented……. About a week after Brack had come to Globocnik, Wirth and his staff returned to Belzec.[70]
Wirth arrived back in Belzec by mid-May 1942. In the last week of May 1942, two transports from two small ghettos near Zamosc-Laszczow and Komarow arrived at the camp. Then, on June 1, 1942, the Germans organized the first deportation of the Jews from Krakow to the Belzec death camp. This Aktion lasted until June 8, 1942, with some 10,000 Jews deported and murdered in Belzec. From his pharmacy in Plac Zgody, Tadeusz Pankiewicz watched the deportations on the evening of June 4, 1942:
By the following morning, seven thousand had been assembled. There they were kept throughout the hot summer morning, then driven to the railway station and sent off to an unknown destination. The round-up was repeated the following day, the sixth of June. The sorching sun was merciless; the heat makes for unbearable thirst, dries out the throats. The crowd was standing and sitting; all waiting, frozen with fright and uncertainty. Armed Germans arrived, shooting at random into the crowd. The deportees were driven out of the square, amid constant screaming of the Germans mercilessly.[71]
Christian Wirth realized that, with the large scale deportations from Krakow taking place and further large scale deportations from the Lvov and Lublin districts, the three current primitive gas chambers in Belzec could not cope. The deportations to Belzec were halted in the middle of June 1942, and thus the first phase of operation at Belzec had come to an end, with the destruction of approximately 93,000 innocent Jewish men, women, and children.[72]
Chapter VI
Construction of the New Gas Chambers—Camp Expansion:
Second Phase, June-July 1942
With the realization that the primitive gassing facilities could not cope with the expected large transports from Krakow, Lvov, and the Lublin district the old wooden gas chambers were dismantled, and a new gassing facility of bricks and concrete was constructed during June 1942.
When the old gas chambers were replaced at Treblinka by a larger facility in August 1942, the Germans used bricks from dismantled buildings in Warsaw to be taken from the Umschlagplatz and connected to the rear of each daily transport. In the book Letzte Spuren, there is a Waren-Passierschein (goods permit) Nr. 00667 for driver Fichtner, authorized by SS-Hauptscharführer Bartetzko for a trip on June 8, 1942, to collect bricks from the Transferstelle-Warschau, who controlled the area where the Umschlagplatz was located. In all probability, it would seem logical to assume that these bricks were used in the construction of the new gas chambers in Belzec, as Fichtner was the camp quartermaster there.[73]
The new gas chambers were not located at the same site as the first gas chambers, but were moved to the eastern part of the camp and a watchtower was built close by. Rudolf Reder, who was deported from Lvov in August 1942, provided a detailed description of the gas chambers and the immediate area in his book, Belzec:
After a time I knew all the terrain well. It lay in the middle of a young pine forest. The forest cover was heavy, and to reduce the penetration of light further, one tree was lashed to another in order to double the density of the greenery around the place where the chambers were. Beyond them was the sandy road where the corpses were dragged.
The Germans had stretched a roof made of smooth wire overhead, and foliage was laid on the wire. The idea was to secure the terrain from observation from airplanes. That part of the camp under the roof of leaves was shaded. From the gate, you entered a huge yard. The large barracks where the women’s hair was shaved off stood in the yard. Next to that barracks was a small yard surrounded by a fence made of boards nailed tightly together, without the slightest crack, three metres high. That fence, made of gray boards led straight to the chambers. This way no-one could see what was happening on the other side of the fence.
Reder now describes the gas chamber building itself:
The building containing the chambers was low, long and wi
de, gray concrete, with a flat roof covered in tar paper, and above that another roof of netting covered with foliage. From the yard, three steps a meter wide and without railings led up to this building. A big vase full of different–colored flowers stood in front of the building. On the wall it was clearly and legibly written: ‘Bade und Inhalationsraume.’ The stairs led to a dark corridor, a meter and a half wide but very long. It was completely empty, four concrete walls. The doors to the chambers opened to the left and the right. The doors made of wood, a meter wide, were slid open with wooden handles.
The chambers were completely dark, with no windows, and completely empty. A round opening the size of an electrical socket could be seen in each chamber. The walls and floors of the chambers were concrete . The corridor and chambers were lower than a normal room, not more than two meters high. On the far wall of each chamber there were also sliding doors two meters wide. After asphyxiation the corpses of the people were thrown out through them.
Outside the building was a small shed, perhaps two meters square, where the ‘machine’ was, a gasoline–driven motor. The chambers were a metre and a half above the ground, and at the same level as the chambers wa a ramp at the doors, from which the bodies were thrown to the ground.[74]
SS-Unterscharführer Karl Alfred Schluch recalled the Belzec gas chambers interior:
I can relate that I saw the gas chambers in the euthanasia institutions, and I was shown the gas chambers in Belzec. These were about 4 x 8 metres. They had a friendly, bright appearance. Whether the color was yellow or grey, I don’t remember. Maybe the walls were painted with oil colors.
In any case, the floor and part of the walls were made so that the cleaning would be easy. The newly arriving Jews must not guess the purpose the room served, and they should believe that it was a bath. Vaguely I remember that there were shower-heads on the ceiling.[75]