About Belzec
The Belzec extermination camp was the first killing center of Operation Reinhard. The plan was to murder Polish Jews in the German-occupied portions of Poland. The camp was simply divided into two parts, a receiving center and the gas chambers.
Between March and December 1942, almost 500,000 Jews were killed, along with an unknown number of Poles and gypsies. By Spring 1943, the Germans had burned most of the bodies and plowed over the site to make it look like a farm.
Belzec was divided into two sections, Camp 1 in the northern and western section. Camp 2 , the extermination area, included the gas chambers and large rectangular burial pits. These mass graves were located in the north eastern. Later two barracks consisting of living quarters and a kitchen, were erected in Camp II for the Jewish prisoners who worked there.