Belzec

Bełżec - darkometer rating : 9 - Bełżec was one of the three death camps purpose-built by the Nazis in the east of Poland as part of " Operation Reinhard ", which was the code name for the most "industrialized" part of the Holocaust . These camps, much smaller in size than the "regular" concentration camps , served solely for the mass murder of (almost exclusively) Jews, i.e., the "Final Solution" as it was dubbed in the Nazis' cynical bureaucratese. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The camp at Bełżec (pronounced "'bel(w)-jets", not "beltchek" as it is commonly mispronounced) was a pure "killing factory", like Treblinka and Sobibor . There had been a smaller labour camp in the small town of Bełżec too, but that existed completely independently of the later death camp of Bełżec. It was the first of the three camps specifically set up to implement Operation Reinhard , i.e. the "Final Solution", the systematic extermination of Poland 's and Europe's Jews. From March 1942 victims were transported to the camp in freight trains and sent into the gas chambers immediately, without being temporarily housed anywhere first. In the combined death camps / concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau at least the impression could be created that newly arrived people might be assigned to one of the barracks that lay beyond the selection ramp. Still, even at Bełżec the illusion was created that the victims were simply passing through a transit camp and only had to be "deloused".