Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Shutting Down - Belzec Ordered Dismantled Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Belzec,Dubois Archive/File: holocaust/poland/reinhard/belzec belzec.13 Last-modified: 1993/03/05 Himmler, during a visit to Lublin in March of 1943, made the decision to terminate activities at the Operation Reinhard death camps. Most of the Jews were already dead, and the extermination machine at Auschwitz-Birkenau was still in full operation, and could handle any requirements the Nazis might still have with regard to the "final solution" of the Jewish "problem." "The final date for the closing of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka now depended on when the cremation of the corpses could be completed. The SS authorities planned to leave absolutely no trace of the death camps. All construction in the camps was to be destroyed or evacuated. The whole area was to be cleaned of debris, plowed over, and trees were to be sown and planted. The first camp to be dismantled and closed was Belzec. <1> The mass deportation to this camp stopped in December 1942. Some transports of Jews from the district of Lvov, which arrived in Belzec after this date, were sent from there to Sobibor. But the liquidation process took several months. Scharfuhrer Werner Dubois, who was in Belzec at the time, testified: The transports to Belzec and, consequently, the gassing operations, stopped quite suddenly.... As staff members of the Belzec camp, we were informed that the place would be rebuilt completely. A working group of Jews, whose size I don't remember, was in charge of the demolition work. It is worth mention at that time [March-April 1943] the cremation of the corpses was terminated and the graves were leveled. The camp was emptied entirely and leveled accordingly. I heard that some planting was done there. The Jewish work commando, after accomplishing this work, was taken to Sobibor. I remained in Belzec for two more days, together with some of my colleagues and guards, to carry out the last clearing and loading....Some time later, when I was in Sobibor, I heard that during the transport of the Jewish work commando from Belzec to Sobibor, some mutiny and shooting took place which led to some deaths...." <2> <1> Yad Vashem Archives, TR-10/517, Trial of Josef Oberhauser, Band 6, p. 1140 <2> Ibid, Band 7, pp. 1402-1403; Ibid, TR-10/1069, Sobibor-Bolender Trial, Band 3, p.483 (Dusseldorf) Excerpted from....---------------------------------------------- BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Individual files are now available via listserv. Send your request to: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca, and include the single word 'index' for a list of available articles.
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