Video: 'Belzec Memorial and Museum Dedication'

(Sunday, March 17, 1942; during The Holocaust, part of World War II) — Belzec, a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a key part of the “Final Solution” which entailed the murder of some 6 million Jews in The Holocaust, became operational today.

The camp was situated about 1,600 ft south of the local railroad station of Belzec, in the new Lublin District of the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland. It continued to operate through late June 1943 when the area was plowed over and disguised as a farm.

Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Belzec, making it the third-deadliest extermination camp — exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz.