March 17, 1942

Bełżec extermination camp

Mass killing operations begin at Bełżec

One transport reached Bełżec from Lublin in the morning and another from Lviv in the afternoon — into a killing process that had already been tested on the labourers who built it.

17 March 1942: two cities, one day

German authorities began mass deportations to the Bełżec killing centre on 17 March 1942. The first transport arrived from the Lublin ghetto in the morning; another arrived from Lviv in the afternoon.

The deportees were murdered in stationary gas chambers using carbon monoxide from an engine. The chambers were presented as showers, and pine branches woven into the fences concealed the killing area from view.

Not the camp's first killing

Calling 17 March the day Bełżec 'opened' is misleading. Construction had been completed by February, and small transports and Jewish construction labourers had already been murdered in experimental gassings.

At least 120 of the Jewish labourers who finished the first installations were themselves killed during those trials.

What the day had become by nightfall

The camp was run through Odilo Globocnik's Operation Reinhard apparatus, with Christian Wirth — a former T4 operative — as first commandant and Hermann Höfle coordinating personnel and rail transports. The camp had roughly 20–30 German SS and police staff and about 90–120 Trawniki-trained auxiliaries who formed most of its guard force.

By the end of 17 March, transports from both cities had reached Bełżec and their deportees had been murdered. The site had shifted from construction and experimental gassings to repeated, scheduled mass deportation and killing.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 3 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The date is secure for the beginning of mass extermination and mass deportations to Bełżec. Describing March 17 as the day the camp simply “opened” is misleading because construction, staffing and experimental killings preceded it.