Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland . It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River, located 153 km (95 mi) southeast of Warsaw .
161-573: Belzec (English: / ˈ b ɛ l . z ɛ k / or / ˈ b ɛ l . ʒ ɛ t s / , Polish: [ˈbɛu̯ʐɛt͡s] ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland . It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard , the plan to murder all Polish Jews , a major part of the " Final Solution ", the overall Nazi effort to complete the genocide of all European Jews. Before Germany's defeat put an end to this project more than six million Jews had been murdered in
322-475: A forced labour complex , and at the Majdanek concentration camp . In most other camps prisoners were selected for slave labor first; they were kept alive on starvation rations and made available to work as required. Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Jasenovac were retrofitted with Zyklon B gas chambers and crematoria buildings as the time went on, remaining operational until war's end in 1945. Heinrich Himmler visited
483-635: A 'euthanasia programme' to disguise that mass murder was taking place. Despite the lethal effects of carbon monoxide, this was seen as unsuitable for use in the East due to the cost of transporting the carbon monoxide in cylinders. Each extermination camp operated differently, yet each had designs for quick and efficient industrialized killing. While Höss was away on an official journey in late August 1941 his deputy, Karl Fritzsch , tested out an idea. At Auschwitz clothes infested with lice were treated with crystallised prussic acid . The crystals were made to order by
644-472: 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. At times, a handful of Jews were selected at the ramp to perform all the manual work involved with extermination. The wooden gas chambers—which were built with double walls that were insulated by earth packed between them—were disguised as
805-526: A lightweight foundation, thus enabling the facility to "process" Jews of the two largest agglomerations nearby including the Kraków and Lwów Ghettos . The wooden gas chambers were dismantled. The new building was 24 meters long and 10 meters wide and had six gas chambers, insulated with cement walls. It could handle over 1,000 victims at a time. The design was soon replicated by the other two Operation Reinhard extermination camps: Sobibor and Treblinka . There
966-475: A more varied relief with loess gorges, and eastern, which is flat. In the southern part of the city there is an artificial Zemborzyce Lake created by damming Bystrzyca. The area of the city is 147 km2. The highest point lies at a height of 235.0 m (771.0 ft) and the lowest point at a height of 163.6 m (537 ft). Lublin has a humid continental climate ( Köppen Dfb ) with cold, damp winters and warm summers. The population of Lublin in 2021
1127-576: A narrow corridor called der Schlauch , or "the Tube". All arriving Jews disembarked from the trains at a platform in the reception zone. They were met by SS-Scharführer Fritz Jirmann (Irmann) standing at the podium with a loudspeaker, and were told by the Sonderkommando men that they had arrived at a transit camp. To ready themselves for the communal shower, women and children were separated from men. The disrobed new arrivals were forced to run along
1288-488: A new underground gallery ("Alchemy") between and beneath Świętoduska and Lubartowska Streets. The local TVP station, TVP3 Lublin , broadcasts from a 104 m (341 ft)-tall concrete television tower. The station put its first program on the air in 1985. In recent years it contributed programming to TVP3 channel and later TVP Info . The radio stations airing from Lublin include Radio 'eR – 87.9 FM', Radio 'Eska Lublin' – 103.6 FM, Radio Lublin (regional station of
1449-585: A railway connection to Warsaw and Kovel and Lublin Station were constructed, spurring industrial development. Lublin's population grew from 28,900 in 1873 to 50,150 in 1897 (including 24,000 Jews). Russian rule ended in 1915, when the city was occupied by German and Austro-Hungarian armies. After the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland -
1610-479: A result of the secretive Sonderaktion 1005 , the camps were dismantled by commandos of condemned prisoners, their records were destroyed, and the mass graves were dug up. Some extermination camps that remained uncleared of evidence were liberated by Soviet troops, who followed different standards of documentation and openness than the Western allies did. Nonetheless Majdanek was captured nearly intact due to
1771-471: A site out of view to be killed off discreetly. According to Höss, enslaved prisoners, euphemistically called Sonderkommando (Special Detachment), assisted in the process of extermination; they encouraged the Jews to undress and accompanied them into the gas chambers which were outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles, and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before
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#17327722152561932-539: A window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes—the stopwatch recorded it all—the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people [locked] in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through
2093-679: A year after the new memorial opened, and discovered her mother's name inscribed on the memorial wall on Mother's Day. From late 1997 until early 1998, a thorough archaeological survey of the site was conducted by a team led by two Polish scientists including Andrzej Kola, director of the Underwater Archaeological Department at the University of Toruń , and Mieczysław Góra, senior curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź (pl) . The team identified
2254-537: Is a regional centre of IT companies. Asseco Business Solutions S.A., eLeader Sp z o.o., CompuGroup Medical Polska Sp. z o.o., Abak-Soft Sp. z o.o. and others have their headquarters here. Other companies (for example Comarch S.A. , Britenet Sp. z o.o., Simple S.A., Asseco Poland S.A. ) outsourced to Lublin, to take advantage of the educated specialists. There is a visible growth in professionals eager to work in Lublin, due to reasons like quality of life, culture management,
2415-675: Is firmly established by testimonies of camp survivors and Final Solution perpetrators, material evidence (the remaining camps, etc.), Nazi photographs and films of the killings, and camp administration records. In 2017 a Körber Foundation survey found that 40 percent of 14-year-olds in Germany did not know what Auschwitz was. A 2018 survey organized in the United States by the Claims Conference , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , and others found that 66 percent of
2576-664: Is located about 10 km (6.2 miles) SE of Lublin. With approximately 8 destinations and over 450 000 passengers served in 2018, it is the biggest airport in Eastern Poland. There is a direct train and bus link from the airport to downtown. From Lublin Główny railway station , ten trains depart each day to Warsaw , and three to Kraków , as in other major cities in Poland. Lublin has also direct train connections with Rzeszów , Szczecin , Gdynia , and other Polish cities and towns in
2737-535: The SS-Totenkopfverbände (the Skull Units, SS-TV), who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well. An SS anatomist , Johann Kremer , after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau , wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942: " Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing!" The distinction was evident during
2898-575: The AB-Aktion . On 24 June 1940, the Germans carried out mass arrests of over 800 Poles in Lublin, who were then imprisoned in the castle, along with dozens of Poles who were arrested at the same time in other towns in the region, including Biała Podlaska , Chełm , Puławy . Many of the prisoners were then deported to the Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz concentration camps, while around 500 Poles were murdered in five large massacres carried out in
3059-646: The Intelligenzaktion , the Germans carried out mass arrests of hundreds of Poles, including teachers, judges, lawyers, engineers, priests, lecturers of the local theological seminary, and lecturers and students of the Catholic University of Lublin , which the occupiers closed down. Arrested Poles were held in a prison established in the Lublin Castle, and many were afterwards deported to concentration camps . On 23–25 December 1939,
3220-714: The SS in order to eliminate " life unworthy of life " ( German : Lebensunwertes Leben ), a Nazi designation for people who they considered to have no right to life . In 1941, the experience gained in the secretive killing of these hospital patients led to the creation of extermination camps for the implementation of the Final Solution. By then, the Jews were already confined to new ghettos and interned in Nazi concentration camps along with other targeted groups, including Roma, and
3381-546: The Aktion T4 , or directly on site. The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities, to which the victims were taken by train , was the result of earlier Nazi experimentation with chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive Aktion T4 euthanasia programme against hospital patients with mental and physical disabilities . The technology was adapted, expanded, and applied in wartime to unsuspecting victims of many ethnic and national groups;
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#17327722152563542-704: The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus creating the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Lublin witnessed the early stages of the Reformation in the 16th century. A Calvinist congregation was founded and groups of radical Arians appeared in the city, making it an important global centre of Arianism . Until the partitions at the end of the 18th century , Lublin
3703-483: The IG Farben chemicals company for which the brand name was Zyklon B. Once released from their container, Zyklon B crystals in the air released a lethal cyanide gas. Fritzsch tried out the effect of Zyklon B on Soviet POWs, who were locked up in cells in the basement of the bunker for this experiment. Höss on his return was briefed and impressed with the results and this became the camp strategy for extermination as it
3864-581: The Iron Cross in April 1944. The following month he was killed by partisans whilst travelling in an open-top car in what is now western Slovenia . After the camp's closure, his successor there SS-Hauptsturmführer Gottlieb Hering was transferred to Poniatowa concentration camp temporarily until the massacres of the Aktion Erntefest , and later followed Wirth and Globocnik to Trieste. After
4025-546: The National Heritage Board of Poland . Archaeological finds indicate a long presence of cultures in the area. A complex of settlements started to develop on the future site of Lublin and in its environs in the sixth to seventh centuries. Remains of settlements dating back to the sixth century were discovered in the centre of today's Lublin on Czwartek ("Thursday") Hill. The early Middle Ages were marked by an intensified settlement of people, particularly in
4186-489: The Nuremberg trials , when Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann ) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked, "How do you classify the camps Mauthausen , Dachau , and Buchenwald ?", he replied, "They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann." Murders were not limited to these camps. Sites for
4347-795: The Polish Radio ) – 102.2 FM, [ Radio Centrum (university radio station)] – 98.2 FM, Radio 'Free' (city station of the Polish Radio) – 89,9 FM, and Radio 'Złote Przeboje' (Golden Hits) Lublin – 95.6 FM. Local newspapers include Kurier Lubelski daily, regional partner of the national newspaper Dziennik Wschodni daily, Gazeta Wyborcza [ Lublin Edition] daily (regional supplement to the national newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza ), [ Metro] (daily, free), and Nasze Miasto Lublin weekly (free). The Lublin Airport (Port Lotniczy Lublin) (IATA: LUZ)
4508-461: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were held in Lublin. In the 16th century, the parliaments ( Sejm ) of the Kingdom of Poland were held in Lublin several times. On 26 June 1569, one of the most important proclaimed the Union of Lublin , which united Poland and Lithuania . Lublin as one of the most influential cities of the state enjoyed voting rights during the royal elections in Poland . Some of
4669-651: The Rottweil hotel while in the French custody, Gerstein described his visit to Belzec on 18 or 19 August 1942. He witnessed there the unloading of 45 cattle cars crowded with 6,700 Jews deported from the Lwów Ghetto less than a hundred kilometres away, of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival from suffocation and thirst. The remaining new arrivals were marched naked in batches to the gas chambers; beaten with whips to squeeze tighter inside. Unterscharführer Hackenholt
4830-595: The SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik stationed in Lublin received an oral order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler – anticipating the fall of Moscow – to start immediate construction work on the killing centre at Bełżec in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. Notably, the order preceded the Wannsee Conference by three months, but
4991-662: The SS-Oberführer Viktor Brack in Berlin for the use of the Aktion T4 personnel in the process. Only two months later, on 17 March 1942, the daily gassing operations at Bełżec extermination camp began with the T4 leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of Organisation Todt (OT). The three commandants of the camp including Kriminalpolizei officers SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Wirth and SS-Hauptsturmführer Gottlieb Hering , had been involved in
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5152-631: The Tomaszów Lubelski Jewish Committee discussed the continuing plunder of the site. In 1945 Szmul Pelc, the chair of the committee of the Jewish Committee, was murdered by local graverobbers. Investigations of grave digging continued through the late 1950s. While Lublin District Commission published the results of their investigation in 1947, the site itself continued to be neglected and memory of
5313-645: The forced euthanasia program since 1940 in common with almost all of their German staff thereafter. Wirth had the leading position as the supervisor of 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 . Christian Wirth had been a killing expert from the beginning as participant of
5474-400: The transitory Nazi-Soviet border . The Burggraben project was abandoned with the onset of Operation Barbarossa . On 13 October 1941, Heinrich Himmler gave the SS -and-Police Leader of Lublin, SS Brigadeführer Odilo Globočnik an order to start Germanizing the area around Zamość , which entailed the removal of Jews from the areas of future settlement. The decision to begin work on
5635-564: The "Holocaust by Bullets" are marked on the map of The Holocaust in Occupied Poland by white skulls (without the black background), where people were lined up next to a ravine and shot by soldiers with rifles. Sites included Bronna Góra , Ponary , Rumbula and others. Irrespective of round-ups for extermination camps, the Nazis abducted millions of foreigners for slave labour in other types of camps , which provided perfect cover for
5796-447: The "low-end" figure and other estimates can be explained by the lack of exact and detailed sources on the deportations statistics. Thus, Y. Arad writes, that he had to rely, in part, on Yizkor books of Jewish ghettos, which were not guaranteed to give the exact estimates of the numbers of deportees. He also relied on partial German railway documentation, from which the number of trains could be gleaned. Some assumptions had to be made about
5957-710: The American millennials who were surveyed (and 41 percent of all U.S. adults) did not know what Auschwitz was. In 2019, a survey of 1,100 Canadians found that 49 percent of them could not name any of the Nazi camps which were located in German-occupied Europe . Astor, Maggie (12 April 2018). "Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 18 April 2018. Final solution Parties Lublin One of
6118-804: The American Jewish Committee. Another prominent Holocaust survivor with a connection to Bełżec is philanthropist Anita Ekstein, former national chair of March of the Living Canada. Anita Ekstein was born in the Lviv area and was hidden as a child by Righteous Poles during the Holocaust . Her mother, Ethel Helfgott, was among the victims in Bełżec. Anita Ekstein has led many groups of students on educational trips to Poland where she shares her Holocaust story. She first visited Bełżec in 2005,
6279-795: The Auschwitz II (Auschwitz–Birkenau) and Majdanek camps were parts of a labor camp complex, the Chełmno and Operation Reinhard death camps (that is, Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka) were built exclusively for the rapid extermination of entire communities of people (primarily Jews) within hours of their arrival. All were constructed near branch lines that linked to the Polish railway system, with staff members transferring between locations. These camps had almost identical design: they were several hundred metres in length and width, and were equipped with only minimal staff housing and support installations not meant for
6440-624: The Auschwitz camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon B gas, which killed before the victim began suffering convulsions. The corpses were additionally found half-squatting, their skin discolored pink with red and green spots, with some foaming at the mouth or bleeding from their ears, exacerbated by the crowding in gas chambers. As a matter of political training, some high-ranked Nazi Party leaders and SS officers were sent to Auschwitz–Birkenau to witness
6601-710: The Bełżec camp imprisonment in the book Bełżec , published in 1946 by the Jewish Historical Committee in Kraków with Preface by Nella Rost, his editor and literary helper. The book was illustrated with a map by Józef Bau , a Holocaust survivor who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts . It was reprinted in 1999 by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum with translation by Margaret M. Rubel. In 1960, Reder's testimony became part of
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6762-729: The EU — every fifth Euro will be spent in Poland. In total, we will have at our disposal 120 billion EUR, assigned exclusively for post-development activities. This sum will be an enormous boost for our country. In September 2007, the prime minister signed a bill creating a special economic investment zone in Lublin that offers tax incentives. It is part of "Park Mielec" — the European Economic Development area. At least 13 large companies had declared their wish to invest here, e.g., Carrefour, Comarch, Safo, Asseco, Aliplast, Herbapol, Modern-Expo , and Perła Browary Lubelskie. At
6923-594: The Eastern Front. The camps designed specifically for the mass gassings of Jews were established in the months following the Wannsee Conference chaired by Reinhard Heydrich in January 1942 in which the principle was made clear that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated. Responsibility for the logistics was to be handled by the programme administrator, Adolf Eichmann . On 13 October 1941,
7084-865: The German preparations for the Bełżec trial in Munich against eight former SS members of the extermination camp personnel. The accused were set free except for Oberhauser , who was sentenced to 4½ years of imprisonment, and released after serving half of his sentence. Extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps ( German : Vernichtungslager ), also called death camps ( Todeslager ), or killing centers ( Tötungszentren ), in Central Europe, primarily Occupied Poland , during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in
7245-403: The Germans carried out massacres of 31 Poles in several locations in Lublin. Among the victims were lawyers, professors, school principals, starosts of Lublin and Lubartów counties and other well-known and respected citizens of the region. In January and February 1940, the occupiers arrested 23 Capuchin friars and 43 Jesuit friars. Persecution of Polish intelligentsia was continued with
7406-448: The Holocaust . The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing , either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans . The six extermination camps were Chełmno , Belzec , Sobibor , Treblinka , Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau . Extermination through labour was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps. Millions were also murdered in concentration camps , in
7567-506: The Holocaust . The camp operated from 17 March 1942 to the end of June 1943 . It was situated about 500 m (1,600 ft) south of the local railroad station of Bełżec , in the new Lublin District of the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland . The burning of exhumed corpses on five open-air grids and bone crushing continued until March 1943. Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered by
7728-495: The Holocaust were mostly killed at Auschwitz II Birkenau. The March of the Living is organized in Poland annually since 1988. Marchers come from countries as diverse as Estonia , New Zealand , Panama , and Turkey . Holocaust deniers or negationists are people and organizations who assert that the Holocaust did not occur, or that it did not occur in the historically recognized manner and extent. Holocaust deniers claim that
7889-443: The Holocaust. Unlike at Auschwitz, where cyanide-based Zyklon B was used to exterminate trainloads of prisoners under the guise of "relocation", the camps at Treblinka , Bełżec , and Sobibór , built during Operation Reinhard (October 1941 – November 1943), used lethal exhaust fumes produced by large internal combustion engines . The three killing centres of Einsatz Reinhard were constructed predominantly for
8050-524: 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. The northern boundary of the planned killing centre consisted of an anti-tank trench constructed a year earlier. The ditch, excavated originally for military purposes was likely to serve as the first mass grave. Globocnik brought in Obersturmführer Richard Thomalla who
8211-478: The Jews were the primary target, accounting for over 90 percent of extermination camp victims. The genocide of the Jews of Europe was Nazi Germany's " Final Solution to the Jewish question ". After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the secret Aktion T4 euthanasia programme – the systematic murder of German, Austrian and Polish hospital patients with mental or physical disabilities authorized by Hitler – was initiated by
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#17327722152568372-448: The Jews, many suspected they were to be killed – despite having been deceived into believing they were to be deloused and then returned to the camp. As a result, the Nazis identified and isolated "difficult individuals" who might alert the prisoners, and removed them from the mass – lest they incite revolt among the deceived majority of prisoners en route to the gas chambers. The "difficult" prisoners were led to
8533-413: The Lublin area has to be one of the main beneficiaries of the EU development funds. Jerzy Kwiecinski, the deputy secretary of state in the Ministry for Regional Development at the Conference of the Ministry for Regional Development (Poland in the European Union — new possibilities for foreign investors) said: In the immediate financial outlook, between 2007 and 2013, we will be the largest beneficiaries of
8694-481: The Nazi system, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide . Six camps meet this definition, though extermination of people happened at every sort of concentration camp or transit camp; the use of the term extermination camp with its exclusive purpose is carried over from Nazi terminology. The six camps were Chełmno , Belzec , Sobibor , Treblinka , Majdanek and Auschwitz (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau). Death camps were designed specifically for
8855-419: The Polish Rada Główna Opiekuńcza charity organisation, around 2,200 people were released from those two camps. Many of the released people, including hundreds of kidnapped Polish children , were extremely exhausted or sick, and were taken to local hospitals, which quickly became overcrowded. Many exhausted children died soon. Lublin pharmacists and residents organized help for the children, and after leaving
9016-423: The SS at Bełżec. It was the third-deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz . Only seven Jews performing slave labour with the camp's Sonderkommando survived World War II; and only Rudolf Reder became known, thanks to his official postwar testimony. The lack of viable witnesses able to testify about the camp's operation is the primary reason why Bełżec is little known, despite
9177-527: The SS guard platoon), was brought to trial in 1964 , and sentenced to four years and six months in prison, of which he served half before being released. Belzec camp guards included German Volksdeutsche and up to 120 former Soviet prisoners of war (mostly Ukrainians) organised into four platoons. Following Operation Barbarossa , all of them underwent special training at the Trawniki SS camp division before they were posted as "Hiwis" (German abbreviation for Hilfswilligen , lit. "those willing to help" ) in
9338-445: The Soviet POWs . The Nazi's so-called " Final Solution of the Jewish Question ", based on the systematic murder of Europe's Jews by gassing, began during Operation Reinhard , after the June 1941 onset of the Nazi–Soviet war. The adoption of the gassing technology by Nazi Germany was preceded by a wave of hands-on killings carried out by the SS Einsatzgruppen , who followed the Wehrmacht army during Operation Barbarossa on
9499-439: The Soviet advance beyond their common frontier following the Soviet invasion of 1939 . In the territory of the so-called Nisko "reservation" , 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 prisoners were put to work by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in the construction of anti-tank ditches ( Burggraben ) along
9660-410: The Soviet westward offensive. In the postwar years, Lublin continued to grow, tripling its population and greatly expanding its area. A considerable scientific and research base was established around the newly founded Maria Curie-Skłodowska University . A large automotive factory, Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych (FSO), was built in the city. In 2023, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine ,
9821-417: The addresses of those members of their race still in hiding". Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses. Commandant Höss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion";
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#17327722152569982-429: The area did not correspond to the actual size of the camp during its operation due to lack of proper evidence and modern forensic research. Some commercial development took place in areas formerly belonging to it. Also, its remote location on the Polish–Soviet border meant that few people visited the site before the revolutions of 1989 and the return of democracy. It was largely forgotten and poorly maintained. Following
10143-439: The areas along river valleys. The settlements were centred around the stronghold on Old Town Hill, which was likely one of the main centres of the Lendians , a Lechitic tribe. When the tribal stronghold was destroyed in the 10th century, the centre shifted to the northeast, to a new stronghold above Czechówka valley and, after the mid-12th century, to Castle Hill. At least two churches are presumed to have existed in Lublin in
10304-431: The artists and writers of the 16th century Polish renaissance lived and worked in Lublin, including Sebastian Klonowic and Jan Kochanowski , who died in the city in 1584. In 1578, the Crown Tribunal , the highest court of the Lesser Poland Province , was established in Lublin. Since the second half of the 16th century, Protestant Reformation movements devolved in Lublin, and a large congregation of Polish Brethren
10465-403: The ashes to hide the evidence of mass murder. The site was planted with small firs and wild lupines and all camp structures were dismantled. The last train with 300 Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners who performed the clean-up operation departed to Sobibor extermination camp for gassing in late June 1943. They were told that they were being evacuated to Germany. Any equipment that could be reused
10626-421: The barracks for the Ukrainian guards were separated from the "processing" zone behind an embankment of the old Otto Line with the barbed wire on top. Most Jews from the corpse-unit (the Totenjuden ) were murdered periodically and replaced by new arrivals, so that they would neither organise a revolt nor survive to tell about the camp's purpose. The German SS and the administration were housed in two cottages outside
10787-400: The basis for a puppet government. The Soviets carried out arrests of Polish resistance members, including the regional delegate of the Polish government-in-exile , Władysław Cholewa, and the commander of the regional branch of the Home Army , Colonel Kazimierz Tumidajski, who was eventually killed in Russian captivity in 1947. The capital of new Poland was moved to Warsaw in January 1945 after
10948-516: The basis of experience he had gained in the fixed gas chambers of Aktion T4. Even though Zyklon B became broadly available later on, Wirth decided against it. Zyklon B was produced by a private firm for both Birkenau, and Majdanek nearby, but their infrastructure differed. Bełżec was an Operation Reinhard camp meant to circumvent the problems of supply, and instead, rely on a system of extermination based on ordinary and readily available killing agents. For economic and practical reasons, Wirth had almost
11109-442: The best cities for business in Poland. The Foreign Direct Investment ranking placed Lublin second among larger Polish cities in the cost-effectiveness category. Lublin is noted for its green spaces and a high standard of living ; the city has been selected as the 2023 European Youth Capital and 2029 European Capital of Culture . Its historical Old Town is one of Poland's national monuments ( Pomnik historii ) tracked by
11270-467: The camp in a house which also served as a kitchen for the SS as well as an armoury. He later moved to the Lublin airfield camp , to oversee Operation Reinhard till the end. After the German takeover of Italy in 1943, he was transferred by Globocnik to serve along with him in his hometown of Trieste . They set up the San Sabba concentration and transit camp there, killing up to 5,000 prisoners and sending 69 Holocaust trains to Auschwitz. Wirth received
11431-514: The camp into a fake farm with one Ukrainian SS guard assigned to settle there permanently with his family. This model for guarding and disguising murder sites was also adopted at the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps. The historian Eugeniusz Szrojt in his 1947 study published by the Bulletin of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland ( Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce , 1947) following an investigation by GKBZNwP which began in 1945, estimated
11592-619: The camp would be required as in the case of the T-4 method. However, Wirth decided that the comparable technology of mobile gas vans used at Chełmno extermination camp before December 1941 (and by the Einsatzgruppen in the East), had proven insufficient for the projected number of victims from the Holocaust trains arriving at the new railway approach ramp. Wirth developed his method on
11753-445: The camp. The history of Bełżec can be divided into two (or three) periods of operation. The first phase, from 17 March to the end of June 1942, was marked by the existence of smaller gas chambers housed in barracks constructed of planks and insulated with sand and rubber. Bełżec was the first killing centre of Operation Reinhard. There were many technical difficulties with the early attempts at mass extermination. The gassing installation
11914-426: The chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the door until the end. The Sonderkommando talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing. Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that
12075-547: The city of Lublin was honoured by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky who granted it the title of "City-Rescuer" in recognition of its humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine and the country's war refugees . Lublin lies in eastern Poland on the Lublin Upland . The Bystrzyca [ pl ] river, a tributary of the Wieprz river, passes through the city and divides it into two parts: western, with
12236-643: The city's population, Jews - 39.5%. In 1931, 63.7% of the inhabitants were Roman Catholic and 34.7% Jewish. On July 20, 1931, a violent tornado [ simple ] carved a path of destruction through the city, destroying dozens of structures in downtown and killing six people. This tornado is officially rated F4 on the Fujita scale ; however, the Polish Weather Service estimated winds at 246 to 324 mph (396 to 521 km/h), potentially ranking it as an F5. In early September 1939, during
12397-553: The collapse of the Communist dictatorship in 1989, the situation began to change. As the number of visitors to Poland interested in Holocaust sites increased, more of them came to Bełżec. In the 1990s the camp appeared badly neglected, even though it was cleaned by students from Bełżec school. In the late 1990s extensive investigations were carried out on the camp grounds to determine precisely the camp's extent and provide greater understanding of its operation. Buildings constructed after
12558-624: The command of Hauptsturmführer Franz Stangl , and Treblinka (operational by July 1942) under Obersturmführer Irmfried Eberl from T4, the only doctor to have served in such a capacity. Auschwitz concentration camp was fitted with brand new gas chambers in March 1942. Majdanek had them built in September. The Nazis distinguished between extermination and concentration camps. The terms extermination camp ( Vernichtungslager ) and death camp ( Todeslager ) were interchangeable in
12719-596: The concentration camps as guards and gas chamber operators. They provided the bulk of Wachmänner collaborators in all major killing sites of the Final Solution . A detailed description of how the gas chambers at Belzec were managed came in 1945 from Kurt Gerstein , Head of the Technical Disinfection Services who used to deliver Zyklon B to Auschwitz from the company Degesch during the Holocaust. In his postwar report written at
12880-418: The corpse of a relative, or saw them entering the gas chambers. According to Höss, they were obviously shaken by this but "it never led to any incident". He mentioned the case of a Sonderkommando who found the body of his wife, yet continued to drag corpses along "as though nothing had happened". At Auschwitz, the corpses were incinerated in crematoria and the ashes either buried, scattered, or dumped in
13041-420: The courage to joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream like maniacs"; these prisoners were taken away for execution by shooting. In such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed the identities and "revealed
13202-467: The crime on direct orders from SS-Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik , the deputy of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in Berlin. The bodies were placed on pyres made from rail tracks, splashed with petrol and burned over wood. The bones were collected and crushed. The last period of camp's operation continued until June 1943 when the area was ploughed over, and disguised as a farm. The camp's first commandant, Christian Wirth , lived very close to
13363-600: The day before. You can't imagine what we find every day—dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!" In the last phase of the camp operations, all prior mass graves were unearthed by a mechanical digger. It was the result of direct orders from the Nazi leadership (possibly from Himmler), soon after the Soviet Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish soldiers was discovered in Russia. At Katyn, the German-led exhumations by
13524-671: The delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the Sonderkommando comforted older children who might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion". Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such tactics; Commandant Höss spoke of Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless ... [they] found
13685-400: The diesel [engine] did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, "like in the synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian ( Trawniki ) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes – the stopwatch recorded it all –
13846-490: The diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons, in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In
14007-533: The early medieval period. One of them was most probably erected on Czwartek Hill during the rule of Casimir the Restorer in the 11th century. The castle became the seat of a castellan , first mentioned in historical sources from 1224, but was quite possibly present from the start of the 12th or even 10th century. The oldest historical document mentioning Lublin dates from 1198, so the name must have come into general use some time earlier. The location of Lublin at
14168-464: The eastern borders of the Polish lands gave it military significance. During the first half of the 13th century, Lublin was a target of attacks by Mongols , Tatars , Ruthenians , and Lithuanians , which resulted in its destruction. It was also ruled by Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia between 1289 and 1302. Lublin was founded as a town by Władysław I the Elbow-high or between 1258 and 1279 during
14329-564: The environment, improving connection to Warsaw, levels of education, or financial, because of usually higher operating margins of global organisations present in the area. The large car factory Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych (FSC) was acquired by the South Korean Daewoo conglomerate in the early 1990s. With Daewoo's financial troubles in 1998 related to the Asian financial crisis , the production at FSC practically collapsed and
14490-598: The events that greatly contributed to the city's development was the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. Lublin thrived as a centre of trade and commerce due to its strategic location on the route between Vilnius and Kraków ; the inhabitants had the privilege of free trade in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . The Lublin Parliament session of 1569 led to the creation of a real union between
14651-607: The exact data about the number of deported persons, but only estimates of the numbers of those who died in transit. Grave robbing at the site resumed after the German guard fled for the approaching Red Army . In 1945, the Lublin District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes conducted an investigation into the crimes in Bełżec. The mass graves at the site were dug up by graverobbers seeking gold and valuables. In 1945 provincial authorities and
14812-467: The extermination camps were actually transit camps from which Jews were deported farther east. However, these theories are disproven by surviving German documents, which show that Jews were sent to the camps to be murdered. Extermination camp research is difficult because of extensive attempts by the SS and Nazi regime to conceal the existence of the extermination camps. The existence of the extermination camps
14973-586: The extermination of Poland's Jews trapped in the Nazi ghettos . At first, the victims' bodies were buried with the use of crawler excavators , but they were later exhumed and incinerated in open-air pyres to hide the evidence of genocide in what became known as Sonderaktion 1005 . The six camps considered to be purely for extermination were Chełmno extermination camp , Bełżec extermination camp , Sobibor extermination camp , Treblinka extermination camp , Majdanek extermination camp and Auschwitz extermination camp (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau). Whereas
15134-477: The extermination process by removing corpses from the gas chambers and burning them. At the camps of Operation Reinhard, including Bełżec , Sobibór , and Treblinka , trainloads of prisoners were murdered immediately after arrival in gas chambers designed exclusively for that purpose. The mass killing facilities were developed at about the same time inside the Auschwitz II-Birkenau subcamp of
15295-404: The extermination programme. Prisoners represented about a quarter of the total workforce of the Reich, with mortality rates exceeding 75 percent due to starvation, disease, exhaustion, executions, and physical brutality. In the early years of World War II, the Jews were primarily sent to forced labour camps and ghettoised, but from 1942 onward they were deported to the extermination camps under
15456-525: The factory entered bankruptcy. Efforts to restart its van production succeeded when the engine supplier bought the company to keep its prime market. With the decline of Lublin as a regional industrial centre, the city's economy has been reoriented toward service industries. Currently, the largest employer is the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University . The price of land and investment costs are lower than in western Poland. However,
15617-523: 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 stationary extermination camp of Operation Reinhard in the General Government . It was his proposal to use the exhaust gas emitted by the internal-combustion engine of a motorcar as the killing agent instead of the bottled carbon monoxide , because no delivery from outside
15778-535: The first government of independent Poland operated in Lublin for a short time. In the interwar years, the city continued to modernise and its population grew; important industrial enterprises were established, including the first aviation factory in Poland, the Plage i Laśkiewicz works, later nationalised as the LWS factory. The Catholic University of Lublin was founded in 1918. In 1921, Roman Catholics constituted 58.9% of
15939-571: The first stationary gas chambers in the General Government preceded the actual Wannsee Conference by three months. The first steps were taken between mid-September and mid-October 1941, and the construction began around 1 November. The site near Bełżec was chosen for several reasons: it was situated on the border between the Lublin District and the German District of Galicia formed after Operation Barbarossa. It could "process"
16100-485: The first years of the occupation, many expelled Poles from Gdańsk and German-annexed Pomerania were deported to Lublin, and later on, in 1943, around 9,000 expelled Poles from the nearby Zamojszczyzna region were brought to Lublin and imprisoned in the Majdanek concentration camp and in a transit camp at Krochmalna Street; many were afterwards deported to forced labour in Germany. In August 1943, thanks to efforts of
16261-452: The gas van technology was also used in Bełżec. The T-4 participant and first operator of the gas chambers, SS- Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt , rebuilt an Opel Blitz post-office vehicle with the help of a local craftsman into a small gas van. 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. The guards jokingly referred to
16422-504: The gassings at Chełmno north of Łódź using gas vans began already in December, under Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange . The camp at Bełżec was operational by March 1942, with leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of Organisation Todt (OT). By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands for Operation Reinhard: Sobibór (ready in May 1942) under
16583-571: The gassings. As the Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss justified the extermination by explaining the need for "the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders". After the gassings, the Sonderkommando removed the corpses from the gas chambers, then extracted any gold teeth. Initially, the victims were buried in mass graves, but were later cremated during Sonderaktion 1005 in all camps of Operation Reinhard . The Sonderkommando
16744-431: The ghettos for "special treatment" in an atmosphere of terror by uniformed police battalions from both Orpo and Schupo . Death camps differed from concentration camps located in Germany proper, such as Bergen-Belsen , Oranienburg , Ravensbrück , and Sachsenhausen , which were prison camps set up prior to World War II for people defined as 'undesirable'. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by
16905-474: The guise of "resettlement". For political and logistical reasons, the most infamous Nazi German killing factories were built in occupied Poland , where most of the intended victims lived; Poland had the greatest Jewish population in Nazi-controlled Europe . On top of that, the new death camps outside of Germany's prewar borders could be kept secret from the German civil populace. During
17066-537: The hospital, the people were taken in by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, which resulted in an epidemic typhus outbreak, which caused many deaths among the population. On 24 July 1944, the city was taken by the Soviet Army and became the temporary headquarters of the Soviet-controlled communist Polish Committee of National Liberation established by Joseph Stalin, which was to serve as
17227-525: The infamous Lublin Ghetto and ultimately murdered. The yeshiva became a centre of learning of Talmud and Kabbalah , leading the city to be called "the Jewish Oxford ". In 1567, the rosh yeshiva (headmaster) received the title of rector from the king along with rights and privileges equal to those of the heads of Polish universities. The city declined due to the disastrous Deluge , when it
17388-477: The initial phase of the Final Solution , gas vans producing poisonous exhaust fumes were developed in the occupied Soviet Union (USSR) and at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland , before being used elsewhere. The killing method was based on experience gained by the SS during the secretive Aktion T4 programme of involuntary euthanasia . There were two types of death chambers operating during
17549-521: The international Katyn Commission revealed details of the mass murder by examining preserved bodies. The Germans attempted to use the commission's results to drive a wedge between the Allies. All corpses buried at Bełżec were secretly exhumed and then gradually cremated on long open-air pyres, part of the country-wide plan known as the Sonderaktion 1005 . Bone fragments were pulverised and mixed with
17710-452: The joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland , which started World War II , the Polish government evacuated a portion of the Polish gold reserve from Warsaw to Lublin, and then further east to Łuck , before the city was occupied by Germany , and found itself in the newly formed General Government territory. The Polish population became a target of severe Nazi persecutions focusing on intelligentsia and Polish Jews. In November 1939, during
17871-523: The killing site as the Hackenholt Foundation. Bełżec "processing" zone consisted of two sections surrounded by a high barbed wire fence camouflaged with cut fir branches: Camp 1, which included the victims' unloading area with two undressing barracks further up; as well as Camp 2, which contained the gas chambers and the mass graves dug by the crawler excavator . The two zones were completely screened from each other and connected only by
18032-500: The king Władysław II Jagiełło . With the coming of peace between Poland and Lithuania, it developed into a trade centre, handling a large portion of commerce between the countries. In 1474, the area around Lublin was carved out of Sandomierz Voivodeship and combined to form the Lublin Voivodeship , the third voivodeship of Lesser Poland. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the town grew rapidly. The largest trade fairs of
18193-403: The midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See, for yourself, the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day – dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!" Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss reported that the first time Zyklon B pellets were used on
18354-476: The moving Holocaust trains on the way to the camp, at their own peril. The railway embankments used to be lined with bodies. There were only two Jewish escapees from the camp who shared their testimony with the Polish Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes. They were Rudolf Reder and Chaim Hirszman. While Reder submitted a deposition in January 1946 in Kraków , Hirszman
18515-407: The number of people murdered in Bełżec at 600,000. This number became widely accepted in the literature. Raul Hilberg gave a figure of 550,000. Yitzhak Arad accepted 600,000 as minimum, and the sum in his table of Bełżec deportations by the city exceeded 500,000. Józef Marszałek calculated 500,000. British historian Robin O'Neil once gave an estimate of about 800,000 based on his investigations at
18676-500: The number of persons per each Holocaust train. The Deutsche Reichsbahn calculations were predetermined with the carrying capacity of each trainset set up at 50 boxcars, each loaded with 50 prisoners, which was routinely disregarded by the SS cramming trains up to 200% capacity for the same price. The Höfle's numbers were repeated in Korherr Report suggesting their common origin. Other sources, like Westermann's report, contain
18837-647: The outskirts of Minsk in 1941 to witness a mass shooting. He was told by the commanding officer there that the shootings were proving psychologically damaging to those being asked to pull the triggers. Thus, Himmler concluded that another method of mass killing was required. Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss claimed in his memoir that many Einsatzkommandos were "unable to endure wading through blood any longer" and went mad or killed themselves, but he gives no specific numbers to support this claim. The Nazis had first used gassing with carbon monoxide cylinders to murder 70,000 disabled people in Germany in what they called
18998-497: The outskirts of the city. Almost all of Lublin's Jews were murdered during the Holocaust in Poland . The secret Polish Council to Aid Jews "Żegota" , established by the Polish resistance movement operated in the city. There are also known cases of local Polish men and women, who were captured and sent to either forced labour or concentration camps by the Germans for sheltering and aiding Jews . Poles who saved Jews in other places in
19159-535: The planned expressway network around the city, that will be built in the coming years, consists of S12 to the east in the direction Chełm , S19 north towards Białystok , and S17 southeast towards Zamość . The expressway bypass of Lublin allows transit traffic to avoid the city centre. Long-distance buses depart from near the Castle in the Old Town and serve most of the same destinations as the rail network. Lublin
19320-466: The present-day district of Rury in 1940. Among the victims of the massacres were both men and women: doctors, engineers, local officials, lawyers, judges, activists, military officers, parliamentarians, Polish resistance members, policemen, teachers and school and university students. An attempt to " Germanise " the city led to an influx of the ethnic Volksdeutsche , increasing the number of German minority from 10–15% in 1939 to 20–25%. Near Lublin,
19481-625: The railway sidings and remains of a number of buildings. They also found 33 mass graves, the largest of which had an area of 480 m (5,200 sq ft) and was 4.8 m (16 ft) deep. The total volume of these mass graves was estimated at 21,000 m (0.74 million cu ft). Air photo analysis suggests that these 33 mass graves were not the only graves at Bełżec extermination camp. All graves discovered by archaeologists contained large amounts of human cremation remains, and 10 graves also contained unburned human remains, which Prof. Kola described as follows: "Deposition of corpses in
19642-399: The railway yards and leave immediately on the way to the camp. They return swept clean most often the same evening." The last transport of Jews arrived at Bełżec on 11 December 1942. The buried remains often swelled in the heat as a result of putrefaction and the escape of gases. The surface layer of soil split. In October 1942, the exhumation and burning of all corpses was ordered to cover up
19803-556: The rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration . In the post-war period the government of the People's Republic of Poland created monuments at the extermination camp sites. These early monuments mentioned no ethnic, religious, or national particulars of the Nazi victims. The extermination camps sites have been accessible to everyone in recent decades. They are popular destinations for visitors from all over
19964-473: The region as Nałęczów , Chełm or Zamość . The express train to Warsaw takes about two hours. There are other smaller stations in Lublin for local trains: Lublin is located at the intersection of expressways S12 , S17 , and S19. Expressway S17 between Lublin and Warsaw is currently finishing construction and should be ready by the second half of 2020. S19 between Lublin and Rzeszów is currently under construction and should be finished by 2023. The rest of
20125-533: The region were also temporarily imprisoned in the local castle, before being sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, some survivors emerged from hiding with the Christian rescuers or returned from the Soviet Union, and re-established a small Jewish community in the city, but their numbers were insignificant. Most survivors left Poland for Israel, the United States and other countries. In
20286-484: The river. At Sobibór , Treblinka , Bełżec , and Chełmno , the corpses were incinerated on pyres. The efficiency of industrialised murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau led to the construction of three buildings with crematoria designed by specialists from the firm J. A. Topf & Söhne . They burned bodies 24 hours a day, and yet the death rate was at times so high that corpses also needed to be burned in open-air pits. The estimated total number of people who were murdered in
20447-586: The rule of the prince Bolesław V the Chaste . Casimir III the Great , appreciating the site's strategic importance, built a masonry castle in 1341 and encircled the city with defensive walls. From 1326, if not earlier, the stronghold on Castle Hill included a chapel in honor of the Holy Trinity. A stone church dating to 1335–1370 exists to this day. In 1392, the city received an important trade privilege from
20608-407: The same carbon monoxide gas used in T-4, generated with the torque of a large engine. Although Holocaust witnesses' testimonies differ as to the type of fuel, Erich Fuchs ' postwar affidavit indicates that most probably it was a petrol engine with a system of pipes delivering exhaust fumes into the gas chambers. For very small transports of Jews and Gypsies over a short distance, a minimised version of
20769-483: The same fate in the end. At the Lazaret killing station they held the sick so they would never see the gun while being shot. They did it "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might, themselves, have been the exterminators", wrote Höss. He further said that the men ate and smoked "even when engaged in the grisly job of burning corpses which had been lying for some time in mass graves." They occasionally encountered
20930-500: The same time, the energy conglomerate, Polska Grupa Energetyczna, which will build Poland's first nuclear power station, is to have its main offices in Lublin. Modern shopping centers built in Lublin like Tarasy Zamkowe (Castle Terraces), Lublin Plaza, Galeria Olimp, Galeria Gala, the largest shopping mall in the city, covering 33,500 square meters of area. Similar investments are planned for the near future such as Park Felin (Felicity) and
21091-472: The shower barracks, so that the victims would not realise the true purpose of the facility. The gassing itself, which took about 30 minutes, was conducted by Hackenholt 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 Sonderkommando work-details. The workshops for the Jewish prisoners and
21252-530: The site was suppressed as very few of the camp's victims were Polish, and few of the camp's primarily Jewish victims survived. Beginning in the second half of the 1950s the pursuit by Germany itself of the German perpetrators revived interest in the site. The Soviet trials of Russian camp personnel, held in Kiev and Krasnodar in the early 1960s soon followed. In the 1960s, the grounds of the former Bełżec camp were fenced off. The first monuments were erected, although
21413-458: The site. German historians Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte, gave an estimate of 480,000 to 540,000. Michael Tregenza stated that it would have been possible to have buried up to one million victims on the site although the true number of people murdered is probably around half that number. The crucial piece of evidence came from the declassified Höfle Telegram sent to Berlin on 11 January 1943 by Operation Reinhard's Chief of Staff Hermann Höfle . It
21574-508: The six Nazi extermination camps is 2.7 million, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. All six camps are located in present-day Poland. The Nazis attempted to either partially or completely dismantle the extermination camps in order to hide any evidence that people had been murdered there. This was an attempt to conceal not only the extermination process but also the buried remains. As
21735-420: The small window because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists hammered out gold teeth, bridges and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See for yourself the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday and
21896-684: The so-called "reservation" for the Jews was built based on the idea of racial segregation known as the " Nisko or Lublin Plan ". The Germans established and operated a Baudienst forced labour camp for Poles in Lublin. Many Poles from or associated with Lublin, including 94 lecturers, alumni and students of the Catholic University of Lublin were murdered by the Soviets in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940. The Jewish population
22057-531: The southeast (German: Lemberg , now Lviv , Ukraine) with the largest Jewish populations in the region. Bełżec fell within the German zone of occupation in accordance with the German-Soviet Pact against Poland. Originally, Jewish forced labour was brought into the area in April 1940 for the construction of military defence facilities of the German strategic plan codenamed Operation Otto against
22218-643: The systematic killing of people delivered en masse by the Holocaust trains . Deportees were normally murdered within a few hours of arrival at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka. The Reinhard extermination camps were under Globocnik's direct command; each of them was run by 20 to 35 men from the SS-Totenkopfverbände branch of the Schutzstaffel , augmented by about one hundred Trawnikis – auxiliaries mostly from Soviet Ukraine, and up to one thousand Sonderkommando slave labourers each. The Jewish men, women and children were delivered from
22379-478: The victim number count. Israeli historian David Silberklang writes that Belzec "was perhaps the place most representative of the totality and finality of the Nazi plans for Jews". In the Second Polish Republic , the village of Bełżec was situated between the two major cities in the southeastern part of the country including Lublin 76 kilometres (47 mi) northwest of Bełżec, and Lwów to
22540-424: The victims crammed into the railway transports . The Nazis deceived the victims upon their arrival, telling them that they were at a temporary transit stop, and would soon continue to German Arbeitslagers (work camps) farther to the east. Selected able-bodied prisoners delivered to the death camps were not immediately killed, but instead were pressed into labor units called Sonderkommandos to help with
22701-518: The war ended, Hering served for a short time as the chief of Criminal Police of Heilbronn in the American zone, and died in autumn 1945 in a hospital. Lorenz Hackenholt survived the defeat of Germany, but disappeared in 1945 without a trace. Only seven former members of the SS-Sonderkommando Bełżec were indicted 20 years later in Munich . Of these, just one, Josef Oberhauser (leader of
22862-494: The war on the camp grounds were removed. In 2004, Bełżec became a new branch of the Majdanek State Museum . New official monuments commemorating the camp's victims were unveiled. One of the prime benefactors behind the new memorial at Bełżec was Miles Lerman , an American Holocaust survivor whose own parents were murdered in Bełżec, raising approximately 5 million dollars with the help of the Polish government and
23023-445: The water-bearing layers or in very damp structure of the ground just above that layer, with the difficulty of air penetration, because of the depth, caused the changes of the deposited bodies into adipocere . In some graves the layer of corpses reached the thickness of ca 2,00m." It is believed that some 50 Jews might have escaped from Bełżec and only seven were still alive at the war's end. An unknown number of prisoners jumped out from
23184-486: The work in February 1942 by fitting in the tank engine and the exhaust piping systems for gassing. The trial killings were performed in early March. The "Final Solution" was formulated at the Wannsee Conference in late January 1942 by the leading proponents of gassing (who were unaware of Bełżec's existence), including Wilhelm Dolpheid, Ludwig Losacker, Helmut Tanzmann and Governor Otto Wächter . Dolpheid negotiated with
23345-646: The world, especially the most infamous Nazi death camp, Auschwitz near the town of Oświęcim . In the early 1990s, the Jewish Holocaust organisations debated with the Polish Catholic groups about "What religious symbols of martyrdom are appropriate as memorials in a Nazi death camp such as Auschwitz?" The Jews opposed the placement of Christian memorials such as the Auschwitz cross near Auschwitz I where mostly Poles were killed. The Jewish victims of
23506-532: Was 334,681. The Lublin region is a part of eastern Poland, which has benefited less from the economic transformation after 1989 than regions of Poland located closer to Western Europe . Despite the fact that Lublin is one of the closest neighbour cities for Warsaw, the investment inflow in services from the Polish capital has secured a steady growth due to relatively fast connection, while external investments are progressing, enabling nearby satellite municipality Świdnik for large-scale industrial investments. Lublin
23667-426: 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 . The installation, resembling a railway transit point for the purpose of forced labour, was finished before Christmas. It featured insulated barracks for showering among several other structures. Some local men were released. The SS completed
23828-532: Was a hand-painted sign on the new building that read Stiftung Hackenholt or Hackenholt Foundation named after the SS man who designed it. Until December 1942, at least 350,000 to 400,000 Jews were murdered in the new gas chambers. One Wehrmacht sergeant at the train station in Rzeszów , Wilhelm Cornides , recorded in his diary a conversation with a German policeman on 30 August 1942. The Bahnschutzpolizei told him: "trains filled with Jews pass almost daily through
23989-625: Was a royal city of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Its delegates and nobles had the right to participate in the royal election . In 1578, Lublin was chosen as the seat of the Crown Tribunal , the highest appeal court in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and for centuries, the city has been flourishing as a centre of culture and higher learning. In 2011, the analytical Financial Times Group found Lublin to be one of
24150-550: Was also to be at Majdanek. Besides gassing, the camp guards continued killing prisoners via mass shooting, starvation, torture, etc. SS Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS , told a Swedish diplomat during the war, about life in a death camp. He recounted that on 19 August 1942, he arrived at Bełżec extermination camp (which was equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers) and
24311-442: Was assassinated in March 1946 at his home, by so-called " cursed soldiers ", from the anti-communist resistance organisation TOW . Following the war's end, Hirszman had joined MBP , a secret police organisation created by the new Stalinist regime in Poland , to crush the anti-communist underground. Hirszman was murdered before he was able to give a full account of his experiences at the camp. Rudolf Reder summarised his account of
24472-434: Was forced into the newly established Lublin Ghetto near Podzamcze . The city served as headquarters for Operation Reinhardt , the main German effort to exterminate all Jews in occupied Poland. The majority of the ghetto inmates, about 26,000 people, were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp between 17 March and 11 April 1942. The remainder were moved to facilities around the Majdanek concentration camp established at
24633-578: Was imperfect and usually only one or two rooms were working, causing a backlog. In the first three months, 80,000 people were murdered and buried in pits covered with a shallow layer of earth. The victims were Jews deported from the Lublin Ghetto and its vicinity. The original three gas chambers were found insufficient for completing their purpose. The second phase of extermination began in July 1942, when new gas chambers were built of brick and mortar on
24794-784: Was invaded by Russo - Cossack forces in 1655, and Sweden in 1656. After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Lublin was located in the Austrian empire , then following the Austro-Polish War of 1809 it was part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw , and then in 1815 it became part of the Congress Poland in the Russian Partition of Poland. At the beginning of the 19th century, new squares, streets, and public buildings were built. In 1877,
24955-468: Was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping "like in the synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel , his eyes glued to
25116-557: Was present in the city. One of Poland's most important Jewish communities was established in Lublin around this time. Jews established a widely respected yeshiva , Jewish hospital, synagogue, cemetery , and education centre ( kahal ) and built the Grodzka Gate (known as the Jewish Gate) in the historic district. Jews were a vital part of the city's life until the Holocaust , during which they were relocated by Nazi Germany to
25277-417: Was published in 2001 by Stephen Tyas and Peter Witte. The radio telegram indicated that 434,508 Jews were deported to Bełżec through 31 December 1942 based on numbers shared by the SS with the state-run Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRG) . The camp had ceased to operate for mass-murder by then. The clean-up commando of up to 500 prisoners remained in the camp, disinterring the bodies and burning them. The Sonderkommando
25438-444: Was responsible for burning the corpses in the pits, stoking the fires, draining surplus body fat and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses ... so that the draft might fan the flames", wrote Commandant Höss in his memoir while in the Polish custody. He was impressed by the diligence of prisoners from the so-called Special Detachment who carried out their duties despite their being well aware that they, too, would meet exactly
25599-421: Was shown the unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead. The rest were marched naked to the gas chambers , where: Unterscharführer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and
25760-469: Was taken by the German and Ukrainian personnel to the concentration camp Majdanek . Wirth's house and the neighbouring SS building, which had been the property of the Polish Railway before the war, were not demolished. After locals started digging for valuables in Bełżec, the Germans installed a permanent guard so that their mass murder would not come to light. SS personnel with work commandos turned
25921-550: Was transported to Sobibor extermination camp around August 1943 and murdered on arrival. "In our view," wrote Pohl & Witte in 2001, "there is no evidence to justify a figure higher than that of 600,000 victims." The Holocaust train records were notoriously incomplete as revealed by postwar analysis by the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes against the Polish Nation. The difference between
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