Belzec (17 mars 1942 – 30 juin 1943)

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Belzec (English: /ˈbɛl.zɛk/ or /ˈbɛw.ʒɛts/, Polish: [ˈbɛu̯ʐɛt͡s]) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to eradicate Polish Jews, a key part of the "Final Solution" which entailed the murder of some 6 million Jews in 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 the SS at Bełżec. This makes it 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 one of them became known, thanks to his official postwar testimony. The lack of viable witnesses who could testify about the camp's operation is the primary reason why Bełżec is not well known despite the enormous number of victims. Israeli historian David Silberklang writes that Belzec "was perhaps the place most representative of the totality and finality of the Nazi plans for Jews".

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