Editing Belzec extermination camp (section)

== Closure and dismantlement ==
{{multiple image
| align = right
| direction = vertical
| width = 217
| image1 = PL Belzec extermination camp 11.jpg
| caption1 = Bełżec mausoleum. Unloading ramp and cremation rails (historical artefacts).
| image2 = PL Belzec extermination camp 3.jpg
| caption2 = Portion of the memorial in Bełżec. Cemented rails built in place of the original unloading ramp, lead in all directions from which the Jews were brought in.<ref name="Małczyński-42"/>
| image3 = PL Belzec extermination camp 6.jpg
| caption3 = The field of crushed stone serves as grave marker; the entire perimeter contains human ashes mixed with sand.<ref name="Małczyński-42"/>
| alt1 =
}}

In the last phase of the camp operations, all prior mass graves were unearthed by a mechanical digger. It was the result of direct orders from the Nazi leadership (possibly from Himmler), soon after the Soviet [[Katyn massacre]] of 22,000 Polish soldiers was discovered in Russia. At Katyn, the German-led exhumations by the international [[Katyn Commission]] revealed details of the mass murder by examining preserved bodies.<ref name="warsawuprising.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.warsawuprising.com/doc/katyn_documents1.htm |title=Commission Findings |work=Transcript, Smolensk 30 April 1943 |publisher=Warsaw Uprising by Project InPosterum |date=30 April 1943 |access-date=15 November 2013 |author=International Katyn Commission |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232720/http://www.warsawuprising.com/doc/katyn_documents1.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Germans attempted to use the commission's results to drive a wedge between the Allies.<ref name="ipn_eng_katyn">{{cite web |url=http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/2/77/Decision_to_commence_investigation_into_Katyn_Massacre.html |title=Decision to commence investigation into Katyn Massacre |first=Małgorzata |last=Kużniar-Plota |date=30 November 2004 |publisher=Departmental Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation |access-date=26 August 2013 |archive-date=30 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120930075626/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/2/77/Decision_to_commence_investigation_into_Katyn_Massacre.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> All corpses buried at Bełżec were secretly exhumed and then gradually cremated on long open-air pyres, part of the country-wide plan known as the ''[[Sonderaktion 1005]]''. Bone fragments were pulverised and mixed with the ashes to hide the evidence of mass murder. The site was planted with small firs and wild lupines and all camp structures were dismantled.<ref name="ushmm-belzec"/>{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=371–372}}

The last train with 300 Jewish ''Sonderkommando'' prisoners who performed the clean-up operation departed to [[Sobibor extermination camp]] for gassing in late June 1943. They were told that they were being evacuated to Germany. Any equipment that could be reused was taken by the German and Ukrainian personnel to the concentration camp [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]]. Wirth's house and the neighbouring SS building, which had been the property of the Polish Railway before the war, were not demolished.{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=371–372}} After locals started digging for valuables in Bełżec, the Germans installed a permanent guard so that their mass murder would not come to light.<ref name="GoldenHarvest22_26">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qAo-yX2RXtsC&pg=PA24 |title=Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust |first1=Jan Tomasz |last1=Gross |first2=Irena Grudzinska |last2=Gross |year= 2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=22–26 |isbn=978-0199731671 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5Ceq6l0M0C&pg=PA435 |title=World Without Civilization: Mass Murder and the Holocaust, History and Analysis, Volume 1 |first=Robert Melvin |last=Spector |year=2005 |publisher=University Press of America |page=435 |isbn=978-0761829638 }}</ref> SS personnel with work commandos turned the camp into a fake farm with one Ukrainian SS guard assigned to settle there permanently with his family.{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=371–372}} This model for guarding and disguising murder sites was also adopted at the [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] and Sobibor death camps.{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=371–372}}