Bełżec Museum and Memorial

Bełżec was the first of the three German death camps of "Operation Reinhard", and the place where the Germans developed the killing methods later used at Sobibór and Treblinka. Between March and December 1942 some 450,000 Jews were murdered here. The memorial opened in 2004 looks nothing like a traditional monument: the entire camp site is covered with grey-black slag, and a narrow corridor cuts down into the ground through its centre.

History: a "laboratory" of the Holocaust

The camp began operating on 17 March 1942, when the first transports arrived. Most victims were Polish Jews, but around 25,000–30,000 Jews from Austria, Bohemia, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary also died here. In mid-December 1942 the Germans stopped the killings and began erasing the evidence: they demolished the buildings, opened the mass graves, burned the bodies and planted trees over the site.

After the war the site was neglected and desecrated for years. The first monument was put up only in 1963, and it did not even mention that the victims were Jews. The turning point was a 1995 agreement between the Polish government and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Between 1997 and 2000 archaeologists led by Professor Andrzej Kola located the remains of 33 mass graves. The new memorial, designed by Andrzej Sołyga, Zdzisław Pidek and Marcin Roszczyk, was unveiled on 3 June 2004. The museum is a branch of the State Museum at Majdanek.

What to see

• The slag field, a symbolic grave covering the whole camp, rising gently to 11 metres. The mass graves are marked with coarser material.
• The Crevasse, a corridor cutting through the grave and sinking gradually to a depth of 9 metres. It probably follows the route along which victims were driven to the gas chambers.
• The Ohel niche at the end of the Crevasse, with a quotation from the Book of Job on a granite wall and Jewish first names symbolising the murdered.
• A path lined with the names of towns the victims came from, running around the grave.
• A pile of rails and slag by the entrance, and a poem by Dan Pagis.
• The museum building with an exhibition on the camp's history.

Did you know?

A few oak trees were kept on the grave site; tree-ring analysis showed they were already growing before the camp was built. They are called the last silent witnesses. The entrance to the memorial is placed exactly where the railway siding used to end.

Tripto tip

Admission is free and no booking is needed; only guided tours are paid. From April to October the museum is open 9:00–18:00, from November to March until 16:00; it is closed on Mondays and some public holidays. There is a large car park (PLN 5 per car), and you can also reach Bełżec by train from Lublin. The museum does not recommend visits by children under 14. Most of the visit is outdoors, so dress for the weather and allow about 1.5–2 hours. Download the museum's free app: it includes survivor testimonies and archive photos.