Editing Belzec extermination camp (section)

===Experience in the Aktion T4 euthanasia program===

The three commandants of the camp including ''[[Kriminalpolizei]]'' officers ''[[SS-Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Christian Wirth]] and ''[[SS-Hauptsturmführer]]'' [[Gottlieb Hering]], had been involved in the [[Aktion T4|forced euthanasia program]] since 1940 in common with almost all of their German staff thereafter.<ref name="ARC-Reinhard"/> Wirth had the leading position as the supervisor of six extermination hospitals in the Reich; Hering was the non-medical chief of the [[Sonnenstein Castle|Sonnenstein gassing facility]] in Saxony as well as at the [[Hadamar Euthanasia Centre]].<ref name="ARC-Reinhard"/> Christian Wirth had been a killing expert from the beginning as participant of the first T-4 gassing of handicapped people at the [[Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre]]. He was, therefore, an obvious choice to be the first commandant of the first stationary [[extermination camp]] of [[Operation Reinhard]] in the [[General Government]]. It was his proposal to use the exhaust gas emitted by the internal-combustion engine of a motorcar as the killing agent instead of the bottled [[carbon monoxide]], because no delivery from outside the camp would be required as in the case of the T-4 method. However, Wirth decided that the comparable technology of mobile [[Nazi gas van|gas van]]s used at [[Chełmno extermination camp]] before December 1941 (and by the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' in the East),{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ACWKeRF49UYC&pg=PA69 "Chapter 3. A new and better method of killing had to be found. The gas-vans"]. p. 69}} had proven insufficient for the projected number of victims from the [[Holocaust trains]] arriving at the new railway approach ramp.<ref name="Fischel46">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrW-b3Q-3ewC&pg=PA46 |author=Jack Fischel |title=The Holocaust |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0313298790 |pages=46–47, 175 |year=1998 }}</ref>

Wirth developed his method on the basis of experience he had gained in the fixed gas chambers of Aktion T4. Even though [[Zyklon B]] became broadly available later on, Wirth decided against it. Zyklon B was produced by a private firm for both Birkenau, and Majdanek nearby, but their infrastructure differed. Bełżec was an [[Operation Reinhard]] camp meant to circumvent the problems of supply, and instead, rely on a system of extermination based on ordinary and readily available killing agents. For economic and practical reasons, Wirth had almost the same carbon monoxide gas used in T-4, generated with the torque of a large engine. Although Holocaust witnesses' testimonies differ as to the type of fuel, [[Erich Fuchs]]' postwar affidavit indicates that most probably it was a petrol engine with a system of pipes delivering exhaust fumes into the gas chambers.{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|pp=230–237, 241, 296}} For very small transports of Jews and Gypsies over a short distance, a minimised version of the gas van technology was also used in Bełżec. The T-4 participant and first operator of the gas chambers, SS-''[[Hauptscharführer]]'' [[Lorenz Hackenholt]],<ref name="Tregenza2000">Michael Tregenza (2000), [https://archive.today/20080302211812/http://www.mazal.org/archive/documents/Tregenza/Tregenza01.htm "The 'Disappearance' of SS-Hauptscharfuhrer Lorenz Hackenholt."] A Report on the 1959–63 West German Police Search for Lorenz Hackenholt, the Gas Chamber Expert of the Aktion Reinhard Extermination Camps. Mazel on-line library. [[Internet Archive]].</ref> rebuilt an [[Opel Blitz]] post-office vehicle with the help of a local craftsman into a small gas van.{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|pp=230–237, 241, 296}} The killing process, using the lethal carbon monoxide, often failed to be completed quickly, inflicting horrific suffering on the victims as they suffocated to death. The guards jokingly referred to the killing site as the Hackenholt Foundation.<ref name=HC-1942>{{cite book|editor1-first=Marilyn|editor1-last=Harran|date=2000 |title= The Holocaust Chronicle |publisher=Publications International|chapter=1942: The Final Solution|page=308|isbn= 978-0785329633 |edition= |url=http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/293.html }}</ref>