BELZEC

Located in the Lublin district of South East Poland, Belzec was initially a slave labour camp. The construction of Belzec extermination camp began in November 1941, with the addition of three gas chambers.
Belzec camp was quite small in area. It was the first Nazi camp to have stationary gas chambers. The camp was divided into two sections. One section contained the administration buildings and reception area, the other the gas chambers. The camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence and camouflaged to hide the activities from those outside.
During the short existence of the camp, the camp commandant, a maximum of 30 German SS guards and between 90 and 120 Ukrainian guards were responsible for the murder of 600,000 people. These victims were mainly Jews; a few hundred were Roma. In its first few weeks of operation, from April 1942, 80,000 Jews were murdered.