Majdanek and Belzec

We visted Majdanek yesterday and Belzec today. Both are known for being among the six German death factories that were used to murder Jews.

Majdanek, on the outskirts of Lublin, began as a POW camp for Russian prisoners of war, became a center for slave labor, and then became an extermination camp that used carbon monoxide and Zyclon B in gas chambers to murder 80,000 Jews. Because the Germans did not have time to destroy Majdanek before it was liberated by the Soviet army, it remains largely intact. A gas chamber, a creamatorium, and some barracks within the original barbed wire are available for viewing.

Belzec was built solely for the purpose of mass murder. Along with Sobibor and Treblinka, Belzec was part of the Akton Reinhardt pogrom that murdered 1.7 million Jews in the area of Poland that was seized by the Germans but not annexed into the Third Reich. Of the original facility, only the railroad tracks remain at Belzec; the Germans destroyed it when they fled the Russian army. However, a mammoth memorial covering many acres has been constructed on the site.

We are now in Cracow, Poland's second largest city. Tomorrow we visit Auschwitz.