Editing Belzec extermination camp (section)

==Gas chambers==
{{main|Gerstein Report}}
A detailed description of how the gas chambers at Belzec were managed came in 1945 from [[Kurt Gerstein]], Head of the Technical Disinfection Services who used to deliver [[Zyklon B]] to [[Auschwitz]] from the company [[Degesch]] during the Holocaust.<ref name="Y357">{{cite book |last=Yahil |first=Leni |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |year=1991 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&pg=PA351 |pages=356–357 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195045239}}</ref> In [[Gerstein Report|his postwar report]] written at the [[Rottweil]] hotel while in the French custody, Gerstein described his visit to Belzec on 18 or 19 August 1942.<ref name = Klee_242/> He witnessed there the unloading of 45 cattle cars crowded with 6,700 Jews deported from the [[Lwów Ghetto]] less than a hundred kilometres away,<ref name="H.E.206">Holocaust Encyclopedia, [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007206 "Belzec: Chronology"] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013.</ref> of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival from suffocation and thirst. The remaining new arrivals were marched naked in batches to the gas chambers; beaten with whips to squeeze tighter inside.<ref name="cymet274">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8fUJ9pK8aeYC&pg=PA274 |page=274 |title=History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church | publisher=Lexington Books | isbn=978-0739132951 | date=2012 | access-date=3 May 2015 | author=David Cymet}}</ref>

{{blockquote|''Unterscharführer'' Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain [[Christian Wirth|Wirth]] comes up. I can see he is afraid because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel did not start.{{efn|Affidavit of ''SS-Scharführer'' [[Erich Fuchs]] (8.4.63: 208 AR-Z 251/59, vol. 9, pp. 1784 f.) in the Sobibór-Bolender trial about the installation of the gas chambers would indicate that the engine disassembled from a tank or a lorry might have been fueled by gasoline or diesel.{{sfn|Arad|1999|p=31}}{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|p=230}} }} The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping "like in the synagogue", says Professor [[Wilhelm Pfannenstiel|Pfannenstiel]],{{efn|Before World War II, [[Wilhelm Pfannenstiel|Pfannenstiel]] headed the ominous German Society for Race Hygiene (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene) as Professor of Hygiene at the University of Marburg in Germany, leading to the development of T4 programme some time later.{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|p=238}} }} his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes—the stopwatch recorded it all—the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people [locked] in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons in four times 45 cubic meters.{{efn|The bricks-and-mortar building with the new gas chambers had six cubicles, each about 25 [[M^2|sq. m]]. It is almost impossible to squeeze such a large crowd [i.e. 750 people] into such a small space. The total of 750 victims per gas chamber was provided by the camp's commandant Christian Wirth to a company of high-ranking SS officers who visited the camp in the middle of Aug. 1942 including [[Kurt Gerstein|Gerstein]] himself. The above figure was stated in his [[Gerstein Report]] at face value. —from "End Notes" by [[Robin O'Neil]].<ref name="Reder/O'Neil237">{{cite book |section-url=https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Galicia3/gal212.html#Page229 |section=Appendix 5: Rudolf Reder's ''Bełzec'': The End Product of 'The Rabka Four's' Activities in Distrikt Galicia |publisher=Spiderwize Publishing |via=JewishGen.org |title=The Rabka Four: Instruments of Genocide and Grand Larceny (Poland) |first=Robin |last=O'Neil |author-link=Robin O'Neil |date=2011 |access-date=12 May 2015 |page=237 |oclc=796270628}}</ref>}} Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists hammered out gold teeth, bridges and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See for yourself the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day—dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!"|[[Kurt Gerstein]], ''[[Gerstein Report]]''{{sfn|Arad|1999|loc=p. 102. Another translation of Gerstein's testimony can be found at {{harvtxt|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|p=242}}}}}}