Editing Belzec extermination camp (section)

==Survivors==
It is believed that some 50 Jews might have escaped from Bełżec and only seven were still alive at the war's end. An unknown number of prisoners jumped out from the moving [[Holocaust trains]] on the way to the camp, at their own peril.<ref name="arc-belzec"/> The railway embankments used to be lined with bodies.<ref name="heart-cornides"/>

There were only two Jewish escapees from the camp who shared their testimony with the Polish Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes. They were [[Rudolf Reder]] and Chaim Hirszman. While Reder submitted a deposition in January 1946 in [[Kraków]], Hirszman was assassinated in March 1946 at his home, by so-called "[[cursed soldiers]]", from the [[Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1946)|anti-communist resistance]] organisation [[Tajna Organizacja Wojskowa|TOW]]. Following the war's end, Hirszman had joined [[Ministry of Public Security (Poland)|MBP]], a secret police organisation created by the new [[History of Poland (1945–1989)|Stalinist regime in Poland]], to crush the anti-communist underground.<ref name="Piotrowski, 131">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NBbnrEMswbUC&pg=PA131 |title=Poland's holocaust |first=Tadeusz |last=Piotrowski |year=2007 |page=131 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0786429134 }}</ref> His murder was before he was able to give a full account of his experiences at the camp.<ref name="Libionka">{{cite web | url=http://www.jewish.org.pl/index.php/historia-mainmenu-66/5457-qoboz-zagady-w-becuq.html | title=Obóz zagłady w Bełżcu (Death camp in Bełżec) | work=Jewish.org.pl Portal Społeczności Żydowskiej | publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku ([[Majdanek State Museum]]) |year=2015 | access-date=11 May 2015 | author=Dariusz Libionka | author-link=Dariusz Libionka | quote=Obóz zagłady w Bełżcu w relacjach ocalonych i zeznaniach polskich świadków (Testimonies of survivors and witnesses). | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141105230352/http://www.jewish.org.pl/index.php/historia-mainmenu-66/5457-qoboz-zagady-w-becuq.html | archive-date=5 November 2014 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Rudolf Reder summarised his account of the Bełżec camp imprisonment in the book ''Bełżec'', published in 1946 by the Jewish Historical Committee in Kraków with Preface by Nella Rost, his editor and literary helper. The book was illustrated with a map by [[Joseph Bau|Józef Bau]], a Holocaust survivor who studied at the [[Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts|Academy of Fine Arts]]. It was reprinted in 1999 by the [[Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum]] with translation by Margaret M. Rubel.<ref name="catalog">{{cite web | url=http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=%22Reder%2C+Rudolf%2C+1881-%22&search_field=search_author | title=Bełżec. Author/Creator: Reder, Rudolf, 1881– | work=Stanford University Libraries' official online search | publisher=Imprint: Kraków, Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna, 1946 |year=2015 | access-date=11 May 2015 | author=SearchWorks catalog | pages=1}}</ref> In 1960, Reder's testimony became part of the German preparations for the [[Bełżec trial]] in Munich against eight former SS members of the extermination camp personnel. The accused were set free except for [[Josef Oberhauser|Oberhauser]], who was sentenced to 4½ years of imprisonment, and released after serving half of his sentence.<ref name="Elsner">{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-elsner/a-new-nazi-war-crimes-tri_b_438428.html |title=A New Nazi War Crimes Trial – And This Time It's Personal |work=Internet Archive |date=29 March 2010 |access-date=12 May 2015 |author=Alan Elsner |quote=Ernst Klee, Willi Dreßen, Volker Rieß: ''Schöne Zeiten.'' S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt, 1988, {{ISBN|310039304X}}. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150508212329/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-elsner/a-new-nazi-war-crimes-tri_b_438428.html |archive-date=8 May 2015 }}</ref>