Ep. 33- The Bełżec Extermination Camp with Chris Webb

The Bełżec extermination camp was the first of the so-called Operation Reinhard camps to open.  In some ways, it provided the model for the other Reinhard camps of Sobibor and Treblinka.  In this episode, Chris Webb provides a detailed history of the camp and a detailed discussion of the important role that Bełżec played in the Final Solution.

Chris Webb is an independent researcher who has written multiple books on the Operation Reinhard camps.  He is also the creator of three important web resources on the Holocaust: the Holocaust Historical Society, ARC: The Aktion Reinhard Camps, and HEART: Holocaust Education and Research Team.

Webb, Chris. The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2016)

Webb, Chris. The Sobibor Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2017)

Webb, Chris. The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2014)

Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Transcript

Waitman Beorn (00:01.218)
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Holocaust History Podcast.

Waitman Beorn (00:07.714)
gonna do that over again because I hit a button in the middle of it. So we're just gonna whoop. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Holocaust Tree Podcast. I'm your host, Waipman Bourne. And today we're going to do a deep dive into one of the Operation Reinhard Extermination Centers. And I have a really great guest here to help us through this history to talk about the Belzic Camp in particular, what made it important and significant.

and that's chris web who is an independent researcher has been working on this topic for a very long time and has written a number of books and specifically about each of these camps it's a really got lucky to have him on the show so chris welcome

Chris Webb (00:51.967)
Thank you very much, Waichman. It's a pleasure to be here.

Waitman Beorn (00:55.891)
Can you tell us a little bit about sort of how you got interested in this particular topic? And then, yeah.

Chris Webb (01:00.161)
Well, you have to blame my father for that. When I was about 16, he bought me the book The Final Solution by Gerald Reitlinger. And I read that book and one of the things that struck me was the fact that there were chapters regarding Action Reinhardt. And actually, I'd never heard of that.

and in fact most people haven't. So it was thanks to my father that I got into this subject which I've been doing for over 50 years. So I should actually know a bit about what I'm going to say today. Well that's basically it. I then managed to set up a couple of well-known websites, Ark and Heart.

They're both sort of finished now and I run the Holocaust Historical Society which is my own website and I think it's a fairly comprehensive website but I specialize in action Reinhardt. I've been to Poland many times. I've been to Belzec three times.

long time ago now but 2002 and 2004 so I've seen the new memorial so you know I've been there I've walked the walk first time I went you walked on the remains of human beings so obviously the site has been tidied up now and there's a fine museum there

that I could recommend. And that's basically it really. I've started writing since 2011. I've had books published now on Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, which is my forte. I've had second editions published and I've had a book published on Auschwitz and Heleno. So...

Chris Webb (03:26.849)
I think I've, you know, I've certainly researched the subject and I'm currently writing what I think will be my last book on Action Reinhardt. I'm doing another book on Treblinka focusing on the Fedor Fedorenko and that is a massive book. It's going to be over thousand pages easily. So, and that will come out next year. So that's my background.

Waitman Beorn (03:51.35)
Wow.

Waitman Beorn (03:56.962)
Absolutely, and it's fantastic and I highly recommend Chris's books as well. They are absolutely, you know...

Chris Webb (04:04.385)
And I should say that I'm not Jewish by the way. So, you know, whether that makes it different or whatever. But in my books I try and tell the story and from both sides, from all sides, the Germans, the Jews, the Poles, the Ukrainians. I try and cover everybody.

Waitman Beorn (04:31.138)
Well, maybe we should jump into that. And I guess before we get to Belzec, maybe we should start really quickly with what is Operation Reinhardt and how do the three Reinhardt camps sort of fit into that.

Chris Webb (04:46.561)
Right. Well, Operation Reinhardt didn't start with the name Operation Reinhardt. It started in March 1941 with the clearance of the Lublin ghetto. And the leader of the mass murder program was Odilo Globochnik, who was based in Lublin.

as the SS and Polizia Führer. So it started with the clearance of the Lublin ghetto and then it was named, it became known as Operation Reinhardt after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in June 1942. So when the Lublin ghetto was cleared in March 1942,

wasn't known as Operation Reinhardt but it soon became known as that. Globochnik named it in Hyderic's honour and that was confirmed by Adolf Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem.

Waitman Beorn (06:02.198)
And so how and when is the decision made to begin to build these three camps as part of sort of the final solution?

Chris Webb (06:12.833)
Well, the decision was made in October 1941 in a meeting between Himmler, Friedrich Krueger and Globocznik in Rastenburg. Globocznik was given permission to start to build Belzec. So that's how it started.

Waitman Beorn (06:39.136)
And how do they decide on the location for Belzec? And where is Belzec located? I guess it's a good thing too.

Chris Webb (06:44.607)
Bells actually was in the back of Beyond. Let me tell you where it is. Bear with me.

Chris Webb (07:00.065)
Belzec is located in south eastern Poland, circa 82 miles from Lublin. Belzec is a small village about 5 miles from Tomaszow Lubelski, the nearest town. It is close to the border of what is now Ukraine.

There were a number of forced labour camps in Bells Edge, including one at Kessler's Mill, one at the locomotive sheds and the Gypsy camp. That camp complex was under the control of Herman Dulp and he was a brutal sadist. The camp conditions were hard and not many people survived.

They were engaged in building fortifications on the border between the General Government, is the name for Boland, and the Soviet Union, the so-called Otto Line. These camps were closed down in October 1940. So the SS already knew about the area. Belzec was actually

Sobibor and Treblinka as an example were deep in the forest in sparsely populated areas. Belzec wasn't. Belzec was actually sparsely populated and quite remote but actually it was on the edge of the village. So if you lived in Belzec village you had no doubt whatsoever about what was going on there.

because actually, you know, the other two camps were remote, Bilsic was not so remote. Does that make sense?

Waitman Beorn (08:57.664)
Yeah, yeah. And if you go there today, I mean, it's you know, the village isn't much, much bigger, I suppose, than it probably was back then. it's right. You know, it's literally the Belzec camp now is literally just sort of down the train track from the main train station.

Chris Webb (09:02.112)
I had no shame.

Yeah, hardly changed.

Chris Webb (09:14.689)
Yeah. So they were good rail networks that connected belt that made easy connection for Bell's Edge. So it was ideally suited in that respect.

Okay

Waitman Beorn (09:32.928)
Yep. And so how, how was it built? Who, who built it? Who designed it? mean, who, you know, who sort of did the nuts and bolts of like, here's, here's the gas chamber and here's the camp itself and all of that.

Chris Webb (09:44.641)
Work commenced on November 1st 1941 under the stewardship of Joseph Oberhauser and an unknown young blonde haired German. Many historians claim that Richard Tamala from the central building administration in Zamosch was responsible but that is not the case.

He was in Russia at the time working on the SS strong points in the east which was one of Glebochnik's programs given to him by Himmler.

Chris Webb (10:31.807)
Right, Belzec Death Camp itself was not very large. Three sides, north, west and east, measured 275 metres. The south side, 265 metres. It was built on a partially forested sandy ridge, known as Kozelc ridge. Three watchtowers were built.

two on the east side and a third on the south-west corner. Balesedge Camp itself was divided in two. Camp 1 included the camp entrance, a sturdy wooden gate, wooden guardhouse, the ramp. It also included the assembly square for deportees and the undressing and storage barracks. It also housed the administration area,

and two barracks for Jewish prisoners.

a laundry, kitchen and a living quarters for the Traveniki manor plus their kitchen, clinic, dentist and barber. Between camp 1 and 2 was the so-called tube a barbed wire passageway that ran from the undressing barracks to the gas chambers. Generally speaking this is true in all three Action Reinhard camps. Camp 1

and camp 2 were completely separated and there was little if any crossover between the two camps. Janko Viennik in Treblinka was able to cross between 1 2 but here's the exception to the rule. Generally speaking nobody saw inside camp 2

Chris Webb (12:30.163)
unless they had any business to be there. Okay?

Waitman Beorn (12:34.208)
yeah and so who actually did the labor of building it was it was it polls there

Chris Webb (12:38.719)
Right, Labour, Belzec was unique in this respect, is that local poles were used to build the gas chambers, at least the initial gas chambers of which there were three, and the Ukrainians and Jewish workers put up the fences.

Okay.

Waitman Beorn (13:02.338)
And who yeah and who was so guess who was put in charge of the camp who was the the commandant and the leadership?

Chris Webb (13:08.705)
Well we'll come on to that in a minute shall we? Let's finish with the description of the camps. Camp 2 included the three gas chambers, the mass graves and two barracks for the worker Jews that serviced the extermination area. Two well-built stone houses on Tomaszowska Street near the railway station

Waitman Beorn (13:12.373)
Okay, sure.

short.

Chris Webb (13:36.969)
served as the commandant and its living quarters. The other stone house was the living quarters of a number of other camp personnel. At the rear of the commandant there was a Polish cottage known as the Pavilion which served as the camp's general office. Next to it stood an armory and a small stable.

Across from the railway station stood the locomotive sheds and water tower built by the Austrians during 1915-16 which were used as the camp storehouse where the victims clothing was stored ready to be shipped to the old airfield camp in Ludlin. These clothes after disinfection were shipped throughout the right.

These locomotive sheds were used as a labour camp up until 1940 and were outside of the camp itself. In terms of Puran Belvedch

Waitman Beorn (14:42.028)
Is it?

Chris Webb (14:48.321)
Belzic's first commandant was Christian Wirt.

and Christian Wirt arrived in Belsich on November the 1st 1941 and then he started recruiting while the camp was under construction various T4 members particularly from Birnberg to come and serve on the camp staff and I'll mention the camp staff later on if you like

via himself

Chris Webb (15:31.08)
I need to.

Chris Webb (15:34.667)
Let me tell you a bit about him.

Chris Webb (15:41.345)
Christian Wirt arrived in Belzec just before Christmas 1941 and was appointed its commandant. Oberhauser, who had built the camp, served as his deputy. In the winter of 1941, Wirt arranged for the transfer of T4 Euthanasia Institute personnel from Bernburg to Belzec. One of these was a man called Eric Fuchs.

who I will tell you why I've singled him out. Whilst the camp was being constructed, Viet experimented with various gassing methods, including the use of a converted parcel van into a gas van that footstrove. The gas van was not a success.

The construction continued and the local Polish tradesmen were used to build the gas chambers and the barracks. They were able to give very detailed testimony after the Germans had been driven out. So that's why we know so much about the Belzec gas chambers, particularly the early ones. The SF staff themselves numbered about 30.

supplemented by Travniki manor who were SS volunteers trained at the SS training camp at Travniki near Lublin. These numbered about 120 in number. The most notorious SS men stationed at Belzec were Gottfried Schwartz, Reinhard Feix and Fritz Jermann.

and the worst of all was Christian Wirt. Now Christian Wirt, really this has got to be singled out. Belzec was a bit of a laboratory. The Germans hadn't built a death camp like this before using stationary gas chambers. So a lot of it was trial and error done by Wirt.

Chris Webb (18:06.717)
It was Viet who perfected how the transports were received, how they were dealt with. People were undressed. The women had their hair shaved. Those that were sick or disabled and who would slow down the swift passage through the tube to the gas chambers was taken aside.

and shot individually in the back of the head with a single shot in what in Treblinka's terms was called the Latseret which was a military hospital in Belzec it was just a mass grave small mass grave so they cleverly worked out that nothing could impede the quick flow of Jews into the gas chambers

So they separated those out that could not keep up the pace. Okay.

Waitman Beorn (19:10.754)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Webb (19:13.921)
Right.

Chris Webb (19:24.383)
Right, let's talk about the gas chambers now. Initially there were three gas chambers, each measured six by four meters. Constructed with double wooden plank walls, the space in between filled with sand. They stood on concrete foundations located in the eastern part of the camp.

Chris Webb (19:53.057)
of 240 people in each chamber built by Polish craftsmen such as Stanislaw Kozak who gave a very detailed testimony after the war. On the northern side of the gas chambers three wooden doors about 1.8 meters high by 1.10 meters wide and one meter high ramp

These were replaced in June 1942 by a concrete building containing six gas chambers which was moved to a more central location. It was a low building with a flat roof, wooden doors and a concrete ramp. More capacity to deal with the transports from Krakow and Lvov which commenced in June

1942

Chris Webb (21:00.555)
So, giving some idea of the programme of mass murder on a grand scale, in February 1942, trial gassings were carried out using local Jews. Mass deportations from Dublin commenced on March 16th, from mid-March to mid-April 1942.

some 26,000 Jews were deported from Lublin. Worth as I said,

Waitman Beorn (21:32.704)
And I should point out, I should point out, you know, also because I just finished a book on the Inovska camp in Lvov and in Lviv and some of the March transports to Belzec were also from Lviv as well. know, that's the, Belzec was the main camp as well for Lviv, as well as Lviv.

Chris Webb (21:52.809)
Yeah, I'm going to mention that. As I said, Viet perfected the process of extermination, which was copied at the other two death camps. That's an important point to make. transports from Lübbeling district followed, then at the end of March,

Waitman Beorn (21:56.642)
Alright, nowhere to

Chris Webb (22:20.577)
transports from the Lvov district from June transports from Krakow and again from Lvov. Christian Wirt left Belzec on August the 1st to take up the post of SS inspector of Abteilung Reinhardt.

a roving inspector for all three of the camps, three death camps. His place was taken by a former colleague of his from the Stuttgart police, Gottlieb Herring.

And in August, whilst I think a transport from Lvov arrived, there was a famous visit to Belzec by Kurt Gerstein and the Wilhelm Fallenstiel. Gerstein was head of SS Hygiene and was responsible for disinfection issues. famously,

or infamously produced a report in captivity of his trip to Belzec in August 1942. Now interestingly, he then says the following day he went to Treblinka. Now, he then says he witnessed eight gas chambers in operation.

Well in August 1942 there was only three guest chambers in operation. So either he's got the date wrong or there were more than one visit. We do not know the answer to that but quite clearly there's no doubt that his trip to Belzec I think on the 16th of August but his trip to Treblinka is problematical.

Chris Webb (24:32.619)
So Gerstine wrote a very lengthy detailed report about what he witnessed in Belzec and that is an absolute must read if you have never read it. that's quite important to cover that. Transports continued up until December 1942 and then

The gassings ended.

So Belzec was only operational in terms of gassing people between March and December 1942.

and I won't spoil the surprise I'll tell you later the number of victims but it is actually incredible the number of victims in such a short space of time so I want to point that out

Chris Webb (25:50.323)
In terms of, we'll speak later about what happened after December 1942, but in terms of the Jewish prisoners, the most famous prisoner who escaped and the only ones who have ever published his memoirs is a man called Rubin, also known as or better known as Rudolf Reider. He was deported from the Vov

in August 1942. He provided the most comprehensive account of life and death in the camp in his memoirs after the war. He escaped from Belzec after being sent to Lvov by German to pick up sheep metal for the camp in November 1942. Another survivor, Heim Hertzmann,

He escaped from the train taking the last Belzec workers to their death in Sobibor. Sadly, he was murdered by Polish anti-semites in March 1946. The number of survivors is very low, possibly 10 at the most.

Waitman Beorn (27:15.874)
And these are people who just survived the camp but did not survive the war.

Chris Webb (27:19.274)
These are people that escaped. There's not many.

Waitman Beorn (27:26.198)
why do you think there's a few i mean there's a there's few in all the places but why so few in in belsich

Chris Webb (27:33.141)
Well, the only reason why there were so many people who survived from Sobibor and Treblinka is that there was a prisoner uprising in both camps. There was no prisoner uprising in Belzec apart from sporadic, the odd sporadic attempt at resistance. Generally escape was

very very difficult from Belzec. A couple of people did escape from Belzec but not many. So in terms of the final period after the gassing ended in December 1942 as I have already mentioned the shift the focus shifted to the exhuming the bodies and cremating the corpses.

so that they, Nazis, were determined to obliterate all traces of the crimes that they have committed in these camps. The bodies were burnt on pyres, known as roasts, using railroad tracks on a concrete base.

Chris Webb (28:55.221)
There's some dispute as to the number of piers there were, but some people say three, some people say five. The thing is, is that one of the reasons why Belzec closed so early is that it was so small and the opportunity to expand wasn't there. So therefore the Germans eventually decided to shut it down.

So this work of exhumation and cremation lasted until March to April 1943. The SS then dismantled the barracks, the gas chambers, the watchtowers. The remaining Jewish survivors, Jewish workers who were employed on dismantling the camp were sent to Sobibor, death camp.

where they were killed on arrival. And I should mention here that also Sobibor actually, when that was built in March 1942, and operational in May 1942, was actually regarded as Belzec's overspill camp. So there wasn't so much need.

for Belzec once Sobibor was operational and I think that was another reason why Belzec was closed. The camp closed officially on May the 8th 1943. Now some Jewish survivors in Sobibor say that the transport from Belzec arrived in Sobibor as late as June

1943. But if you think about it with the exclamation and cremation finished in March and the dismantling of the camp there's no way that that would go on until June. So there is a Polish witness who says the Germans left on May the 8th 1943.

Chris Webb (31:18.419)
and that is when I believe the camp was closed.

Alright.

Chris Webb (31:27.861)
The number of victims.

We were lucky enough to discover through the work of a chap called Stephen Tyus, who discovered at the Public Records Office in Kew an intercepted German telegram.

that was produced by Herman Hoffler who was Glebochnik's deputy in Action Reinhardt, also based in Lublin, of where he listed the number of people transported to Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Not killed, number of people transported.

So obviously they tried to hide the real messages in their communications. The number mentioned for Belzec and this was in January 1943 when the telegram was intercepted. So don't forget, Belzec had already stopped guessing people and the number is...

434,508

Chris Webb (32:52.673)
So that to me gives a very clear and solid indication of the number of victims at Belzec. Some people have quoted 500,000, some people have quoted 600,000. Personally, I believe it is around the 434,000 mark.

there is some dispute as to whether this includes transports from Germany and Austria and other places or this was just the Polish Jews and that's a fair point to make but actually if you were to include German Jews and Austrian Jews it would probably raise it up to 450,000 and no more than that so that

That is my general view of how many people were murdered at Belsich given that so few escaped.

Okay?

Waitman Beorn (34:00.938)
Yeah, can you can you tell us a little bit about the investigation into the SS mags? I think it's actually kind of interesting in terms of SS investigations into the camp officials.

Chris Webb (34:14.529)
Well, generally speaking,

There was a trial in the 1960s, or 1962 I think it was, where a half a dozen of the guards

Waitman Beorn (34:29.804)
Well, before we get to that, I'm talking about the investigations that the SS conducted into the SS in terms of the corruption of the SS men in the camp and this kind of thing.

Chris Webb (34:43.169)
I am not aware of any investigations into corruption at Belzec. There were investigations carried out by Conrad Morgan into the goings on at Sobibor. But generally speaking, that's the only known corruption.

investigations that I'm aware of at Sobibor and at the old

the old flight camp, the Bacleidon's work, where the Jewish victims clothes were sorted and stored. There was investigations into corruption there and in Lublin itself, the financial dealings were headed by a man called Georg Wippen.

They were investigated but I am not aware of any corruption investigation at Belswich.

Waitman Beorn (36:00.994)
Okay, yeah, just that.

Chris Webb (36:02.123)
Presumably because Wiet ran Belzec with an incredibly iron grip and herring followed suit. I think whilst undoubtedly some individual SS men in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka may well have helped themselves to some of the goods. I'm not aware of any

large-scale corruption investigations into Belsik.

Waitman Beorn (36:35.298)
Okay, cool, yeah, probably, maybe I was thinking about the Soybor investigation. What?

Chris Webb (36:42.525)
But in later years, course, Viet was killed in Italy, in action in Italy in 1944.

When the camps closed down in Belzec an awful lot of the personnel went to other Jewish labor camps. Herring went to Ponyatova and Glei who was at Belzec also went to Ponyatova and the camp at Dorohutsa which obviously then these camps, certainly Dorohutsa not Ponyatova but

Dora Hütze and Lublin and all the camps in Lublin and Trabniki they were all murdered in the Harvest Festival Massacre in November 1943. So in terms of witnesses and things there weren't many. In terms of trials, proper trials, there was a trial in Munich in the 60s

where half a dozen or so of the Belsitch personnel, don't forget there were about 30 at any one time there, actually trial proceedings or pre-trial preliminary investigations were carried out and all of them without doubt were

decided not to proceed any further and the only man tried for war crimes at Belsich was Joseph Oberhauser.

Chris Webb (38:39.553)
the only one. The others, some of the others who had undoubtedly committed war crimes at Belzec were then later re-arrested almost straight away and brought to trial in the Sobibor trial in Hagen during 1965 and 66. Some were acquitted but most received very, very

slight sentences and in fact

may not have. Oberhäuser only got sentenced to I think four years imprisonment for his crimes at Belsich. That was it and none of the others were tried. No Tragniki men tried, no SS men tried.

Waitman Beorn (39:40.362)
What happened to the Travniki men? Did they just sort of melt back into society?

Chris Webb (39:43.713)
Most of them were not brought to justice, were. Some were tried in the USSR in the 60s and generally executed. But by and large most of the Trabniki men who served in Belzec and for that matter Sobibor and Treblinka were never brought to trial.

Waitman Beorn (40:15.648)
And what happened to the site itself after the war?

Chris Webb (40:19.585)
Well the site itself was basically neglected and generally left alone. The railway station at Berlzec was bombed by a Soviet fighter in 1944 and was completely destroyed and the Wehrmacht put up a temporary train station which was there, you know...

50 years after the war was still there but it's now been replaced by a more modern station. The locomotive sheds were intact when I first went in Treblinka in 2000 and 2002 and indeed in 2000 in 2002 were a bit of a wreck but still there.

but they then had a fire and when we went there in 2004 they were virtually destroyed.

Waitman Beorn (41:26.848)
Yeah, they're still there today. went, was in Belzec last year.

Chris Webb (41:31.211)
Well, well, are they still there?

Waitman Beorn (41:35.286)
Yeah, they're still there, but they don't have like a roof on a lot of them. But you can definitely tell what they were.

Chris Webb (41:39.093)
Right, okay. In that respect, you know more than me then. I thought they'd been completely demolished, to be honest, but I think the water tower's still there, isn't it?

Waitman Beorn (41:54.204)
But that definitely the...

Chris Webb (41:56.123)
I can't miss it because it's next door to it.

Waitman Beorn (41:59.158)
There's a large brick building right next to it. Yeah, that's still there.

Chris Webb (42:03.665)
Yeah, that's the water tower. That's okay. So that's an original. And the bakery in the other end of the town is still there, which is another red brick building near a crossroads where there's a restaurant.

Waitman Beorn (42:20.308)
and the and of course the the common dot or and the s s residents are still there as well

Chris Webb (42:28.405)
Well, the Commandantere has been turned into a museum, hasn't it? But the other buildings, so yes, that's still there but different and the other stone building is an original.

Waitman Beorn (42:31.313)
Museum now, yep.

Waitman Beorn (42:42.958)
What was the reaction of local polls to the camp while it was in operation and then even afterwards?

Chris Webb (42:57.953)
Well, generally speaking, life went on whilst the camp was in operation. They witnessed a lot of things. I stayed in the, what was, I said bakery earlier and I meant laundry. I stayed in what was the bakery in 2000 and 2002.

and the old lady that lived there, Gisela, she told me that when they started burning the bodies they were scraping human fat off the window seals so you know they they they knew what was going on well certainly once they started burning the bodies they knew what was going on

But they probably knew beforehand that something was happening because of the transports into the station with the camp being so near to the station. So people saw the transports, people saw what was going on. Generally speaking, I think they just accepted it.

Waitman Beorn (44:20.086)
And then after the war, you know, what was the site commemorated or what was it used for before it became sort of the memorial?

Chris Webb (44:27.617)
Well, the site wasn't commemorated for a very, very long time. And then in the 60s, they built a monument there.

But when I visited in 2000, my overriding impression of the camp was that it was neglected. It was neglected and uncared for. Yes, they built some concrete structures that represented the mass graves. But, you know, it really was...

a pretty neglected site, I have to say that. And it was only in the 2000s and 2004 when the site was redeveloped and a museum put up, you know, did it, I think, do it really some justice. Although I think for me, controversially, they covered

the Belzec campground in what could only be described as something like iron slag and whilst you know it's much better that you're not walking over the bones of the victims I must say that I do find it disappointing that there were some structures at Belzec uncovered during the archaeological digs in

Waitman Beorn (45:42.582)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Chris Webb (46:05.889)
1997 that I wish they had preserved those instead of burying them. There was a garage pit, there was a generator pit and there were the foundations of some barracks. So there were no structures per se apart from you know the foundation ruins of the garage and whatever and I wish they'd kept those.

by all means cover the rest in slag but leave those put them on the glass or something but so at least you saw that there was something there that's my own personal view

Waitman Beorn (46:45.846)
Yeah, that's it is really interesting that you bring that up because the I mean on the one hand the memorial as it stands today and listeners, you know, you can easily go online and find images of it. And obviously it's worth visiting and you should go there. But if you can't, you can find images of it the way it is today. It is basically sort of a field of twisted kind of rusted rebar metal. And then the

the route to the gas chamber where the or where the gas chambers were is sort of notionally indicated by a path that sort of cuts into the mountain because it's an upward facing slope. And all around the side are names and dates of transports from various towns and cities and villages in Poland. And so it's a very moving

memorial site, but I think one of the challenges Chris that you're pointing out is particularly now that we have things like ground penetrating radar and non-invasive archaeological techniques is that basically that's it's impossible now because it's it's completely inaccessible for any kind of sensing, you know, kinds of things like that. So it's all sort of gone underneath underneath the memorial.

Chris Webb (48:06.753)
Yeah.

Chris Webb (48:14.219)
Yes, I think it is a fine memorial and I think the museum is excellent. But that's my take on what I thought they should have done. Because they actually destroyed a bit of history that was there and they shouldn't do that in my opinion. other people may have a different view.

Waitman Beorn (48:41.62)
Yeah, I mean, it definitely it definitely does make it sort of, you know, and not not accessible in terms of future research, which I think is is a it's definitely a challenge when we talk about Holocaust memorialization in general, you know, this this because I guess I guess the other the other argument from a certain perspective in other places like Trip Lanka, for example, though they haven't done it. Well, they kind of have in terms as well.

you know, there was the challenges of, of local inhabitants who were digging, you know, digging on the site in the hopes of finding, you know, valuables or something like that. And so that there was, I think there's also some argument made by some that, you know, this is a way to protect the site from the most kinds of people. because it's, you know, it's all covered in concrete now and you can't really, you can't do any of that sort of thing, but it does.

It does make it sort of very much an abstract space when you visit, though you can. think one of the, one of the benefits of it, you know, is that, you know, it does give you a sense, a very good sense of how small Bells itch is. cause you can literally stand, you know, at the top of the ridge and you can see the entire camp, you know, and it's, it's

comparatively speaking, particularly if you compare it to Auschwitz, you know, it's a tiny, tiny place.

Chris Webb (50:18.209)
even compared to Treblinka it's tiny compared to Treblinka and Treblinka itself is not huge compared to say Auschwitz but in terms of Belzec I think for me a couple of things emerged one it was the laboratory it was where action Reinhardt the mass killing

Waitman Beorn (50:24.214)
Absolutely.

So.

Chris Webb (50:47.489)
procedures were perfected. And I should have said that the action Reinhardt really was the mass murder program initially anyway of Polish Jews.

and was then obviously extended, less so in case of Belszach because it finished gassing in December 1942. But Sobibor, for example, took in transports from France and Holland in 1943. Treblinka also took in transports from Greece and Austria and other places.

So whilst Action Reinhardt was initially all about Polish Jewry, it was extended to include other nations.

Waitman Beorn (51:43.36)
And I think I'll.

Chris Webb (51:44.033)
And an action ryanod killed according to Klobocnik or according to various things accounts of 1.7 million Jews.

That is more than Auschwitz. And it actually killed 1.7 million Jews in a period of about 18 months at the most. Whereas Auschwitz was going with gassing people for four years. So the destructive nature of action Reinhardt, in my opinion, deserves a more prominent place in Holocaust history. I think it's

Waitman Beorn (52:05.836)
Yeah.

Waitman Beorn (52:19.458)
Absolutely.

Chris Webb (52:31.967)
beginning to get that way but it certainly hasn't been that way in the past.

Waitman Beorn (52:37.258)
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point. And it's a it's also a point that.

bears a good deal of relation to literally the geography in the sense that none of these camps, the Reinhard camps, were liberated. know, the Nazis were able to erase them physically, more or less. I mean, you can still do research in places like Sobo-Winterblinken and discover underneath the ground evidence. But, you generally speaking, these places are physically erased.

Chris Webb (52:54.945)
Correct.

Waitman Beorn (53:12.47)
the personnel that served there are dispersed and some of them die during the war. And there's an interesting argument I've heard, you know, that maybe some of them were actually sent to fight the partisans in the hopes that they would be killed and not serve as witnesses. And then of course the survivors themselves, there's such a small number because none of these Reinhard camps were created with

Chris Webb (53:12.715)
Yes.

Waitman Beorn (53:42.816)
the intent of having anybody live there unless you were sort of directly involved more or less in the process. And so they're unlike Auschwitz or any of the concentration camps in Germany, there isn't a massive prisoner population of workers and laborers and that kind of stuff. so, and then on top of all of that, right, these camps are located for a long period of time, you know, behind the iron curtain and our

sort of physically and in some ways academically and scholarly, scholarly inaccessible to a lot of people. Whereas Auschwitz is liberated and it remains as a, has a physical trace, you know, on the landscape. And it has many, many, many more survivors because it had a much larger prisoner population. And so all of these things, I think sort of combine to

to place the Reinhardt camp sort of out of sight, out of mind for a long period of time.

Chris Webb (54:46.099)
I think that's a very fair comment. I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

Waitman Beorn (54:51.746)
And you're right. And you know that that now there are even now there are sort of more work that's being done on it. Your books, Jacob Flaws's book, another book that's coming out shortly by Chad Gibbs, all on those two on Tablinca. But, you know, there there are relatively speaking few books written ironically about these places. You know, there's just there's just not a lot of them. And it is is surprising when you think about

the role that they play in Reinhardt and in the Holocaust, which is a outsized role. It is a bit surprising that there aren't particularly many researched scholarly books on these subjects. I mean, think about Kelmno, there's like one monograph, I think, that I can think of off the of my head on Kelmno, for example. Kelmno's obviously not a Reinhardt camp, but you know,

Belzic, there's your book, there's Kovalik's book, but there aren't, again, they're just, compared to Auschwitz, which has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books written about it, it is worth pointing out.

Chris Webb (56:06.113)
Well, I used to know Robert Kuvallek. He was a personal friend of mine. His book is excellent on Belzec. I would recommend that. He wanted a book to be recommended. I mean, there is only one book by a survivor and that's Rudolf Reider's book. So in terms of Holocaust recommendations, that's the only one apart from Robert Kuvallek, that's the only

Waitman Beorn (56:21.954)
yeah.

Chris Webb (56:35.041)
Books on Belzec I could recommend. Saying I'm not recommending my own of course.

Waitman Beorn (56:38.346)
And for our listeners, what's the title of that book?

Chris Webb (56:46.549)
What, Robert Kovalecs?

Waitman Beorn (56:47.616)
no, Raider's book.

Chris Webb (56:49.825)
A Belditch. It's just called Belditch. Written in 1946 I think. It's quite a slim book.

Waitman Beorn (56:52.129)
Okay.

And obviously folks, I'll have that. I will put that.

Waitman Beorn (57:04.061)
I will put that in the show notes as well for everyone.

Chris Webb (57:07.189)
Yeah, it's a slim book, but actually it's the only one from a survivor.

Waitman Beorn (57:14.816)
And because I think ultimately, and maybe this is a a good sort of way to end, I suppose. I think there was something like. Two, three, three people from the camp who escaped. And survived the war, is that about right?

Chris Webb (57:33.761)
That's about right, yes.

Waitman Beorn (57:35.426)
And of course, sadly, one of them who might have told us more was killed in 1946 in Poland. And so we've lost that. We've lost that sort of testimony as well. Well, this has been great. And I think it's given everyone a really sort of deep, detailed history of Belzec and we will we will do something similar.

Chris Webb (57:43.029)
Yes.

Waitman Beorn (58:02.546)
with the other camps well at some point. So don't worry about that, folks. And so I want to go ahead, Chris.

Chris Webb (58:08.097)
Well perhaps maybe next year I can do another one with better IT connections in Onchoblinka.

Waitman Beorn (58:21.964)
Yeah, that'd be great. mean, and you know, we worked through this. The IT is working now, the crystals, as we say. But yeah, I want to thank you very much, Chris, for taking the time. I also want to direct our listeners to the various websites. One is called Holocaust Historical Society. Another is ARC Art.

and another is Hart, H-E-A-R-T, and all of these have just an awful lot of really good information, particularly about the Reinhardt camps, but also about other things. They also have, which I found fascinating, some photographs, particularly photographs of, in this case, Belzic, when Chris visited in early 2000s, before there was any memorial there. So those of us that have been to it, I haven't been to it.

at a time that there wasn't a memorial. So seeing it without the memorial sort of there was really interesting. So I highly recommend that you check those out. I will link to those in the show notes as well. As always, if you have a chance, please, please, please give us a rating and a comment. Let us know what you think. You can always also email me as well. And thanks for listening.

But again, Chris, thanks so much. for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Chris Webb (59:50.955)
Now you're welcome. Can I finish by saying that I ought to thank a guy called Tom Aschov, eugenic. No, I got his name wrong. Let me just thank the Balzac Museum director whose first name is Thomas, who's helped me, Hanienko.

Waitman Beorn (59:53.494)
Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Webb (01:00:20.233)
is his surname, who has always supported me and helped me a lot with my second Belzec book. The second Belzec book is far better than the first one because of course it's got more information on. And one of the things that I do feature in my books that I think is unique is that I do a Jewish role of remembrance covering not only the survivors, which is very few in Belzec, but also the victims.

So I think that's quite an important bit. Most books don't cover that. I do. And that's the final word for me. Thank you very much for letting me talk about Belzec.

Waitman Beorn (01:00:56.514)
Absolutely.

Waitman Beorn (01:01:03.03)
Yeah, thanks so much, sir. Appreciate it.

Chris Webb (01:01:05.161)
Okay, thanks.