The Belzec death camp was built by the SS Zentralbauverwaltung (Central Building Administration) in the Lublin district. Work commenced on November 1, 1941, under the stewardship of SS-Oberscharführer Josef Oberhauser. A number of local villagers were employed in the construction of the death camp, and after the war provided statements about its genesis. One of these was Edward Ferens, a 36-year-old locksmith, who testified on March 20, 1946, in Belzec:

In the autumn of 1941 I worked for seven weeks on the construction of the barracks in Belzec which, it later transpired were used in the exterminiation of the Jews. I worked as an ordinary labourer and was forced into this work by the municipal office in Belzec.

During this time six barracks were built. Later more barracks were put up, but by then I was no longer employed on their construction. I remember that we put up a barracks which was especially big, beside a much smaller one; the two were connected by a corridor. This small barracks was well-built and a narrow-gauge railway laid which ran from this barracks across the field.

When we asked the Germans what this barracks was for, they only laughed and said nothing. I remember that the building of the camp was directed by a young German; he was about twenty years old, slim, blond, and allegedlly came from the Kattowitz area. This German had the building plans and often went around with them among the labourers working in the camp area. I asked him what these barracks were being built for? As an answer, the German only laughed ... he only spoke weak Polish. Besides this young German, there were no other German specialists involved in the building work.[41]

Stanislaw Kozak, another Polish local worker, provided another key eyewitness account of the building of the death camp. He testified in Belzec on October 14, 1945, and his detailed statement on the first gassing facilities should be viewed as the definitive account:

There arrived in Belzec in October 1941, 3 SS men who demanded 20 workers from the Belzec community. The municipal office appointed 20 inhabitants of Belzec as workersI was one of them. The Germans selected the area to the South-East of the railway station where a siding ended.

Alongside the siding ran the railway to Lemberg. We began work on 1 November 1941 with the building of barracks at the end of the siding. One barrackwhich stood right next to the sidingwas 50 metres long and 12.5 metres wide. It was a waiting room for the Jews. The second barrack 25 metres long and 12.5 metres widewas for the Jews appointed to bathe in.

Near this barracks we had built a third barracks which was 12 metres long and 8 metres wide. This barrack was divided into three parts by wooden wallseach part being 4 metres wide and 8 metres long. The height of each section was 2 metres. The inner walls of this barracks were so constructed that we nailed planks to them and filled the empty space between them with sand. The interior walls of this barrack were covered with pasteboard, and the floors and wallsto a height of 1.10 metreswere covered with zinc sheeting.

From the first barracks to the second barracks, about which I have already spoken, there led an alleyway 3 metres wide of barbed-wire fencing 3 metres high. The side of the fence nearest the siding was specially covered with pine and fir branches, so that nothing was visible from the siding. From the second barracks a covered passage 2 metres wide, 2 metres high and about 10 metres longled to the third barracks. Through this passage one arrived at the corridor of the third barrack which led through three doors into the three parts of the barracks.

Kozak continued his detailed description:

Each part of this barracks had on its northern side a doorabout 1.80 metres high and 1.10 metres wide. These doors, as well as the ones in the corridor, were sealed with rubber. All the doors in this barrack opened outwards. The doors were very strongconstructed of planks 75mm thick and fastened from the outside by a wooden bar which fitted into two iron hooks.

In each of the three parts of this barrack there was fixed at a height of 10cms from the floor, a waterpipe. The waterpipe branched from each corner along the western wall of each part of this barrack to the middle of the wall, and ended in an opening at a height of 1 metre from the floor. These waterpipes were joined to a main pipe at a junction under the floor.

In each of the three parts of the abovementioned barracks were placed stoves weighing 250 kilos. One must surmise that the waterpipes were later connected to these stoves. The stoves were 1.10 metres high, 55 cm wide and 55 cm long. Out of curiosity, I glanced into the stove through the open door. I did not see any grate there. The interior of the stove wasso it seemedlined with firebrick. I could not ascertain what the other stoves were like. The stove opening was oval, with a diameter of about 25cm, and about 50cm above the floor.

Along the northern side of this barrack a 1 metres high ramp made of planks was errected and along this ramp a narrow- gauge railway track was laid which led to the grave right in the noth east corner which had been dug by the ‘Blacks. This grave was dug by 70 ‘Blacks ..... it was 6 metres deep, 20 metres wide and 50 metres long. This was the first grave in which the Jews killed in the death camp were buried. The ‘Blacks dug this grave in 6 weeks, during the time we were building the barracks. This grave was later extended to the middle of the northern boundary.

The first of these barracks I mentioned lay 20 metres from the siding and 100 metres from the southern boundary. At that time, when we Poles were building these barracks, the ‘Blacks erected the fencing around the death camp, which consisted of wooden posts between which was strung barbed-wire.

After we had built the aforementioned three barracks, the Germans released us from our work on 22 December 1941. As far as I remember, in January or February 1942, the Germans built three watchtowers around the camp. Further building work in the camp was carried out by Jews under German supervision.

The western, northern and eastern borders of the camp were planted with big fir trees and pines to hide the interior of the camp. The camp was dividedfrom east to westin three parts. In the first part were the Jews employed in burying the corpses of the murdered Jews; in the second partthe sorting of the clothing and other belongings of the Jews; and the third partthose employed in working in the camp (even outside the camp).

I know that the Germans baked 500 loaves of bread a day, sometimes morefor the Jews employed in the camp. These Jews were employed in the camp the whole time it was in operation. At the moment of the disbandment of the camp these Jews were taken away by train in the direction of Rejowiec.

Before the New Year of 1942, the Germans brought about 70 Jews in lorries from Lubycza (Krolewska) and Mosty. The ‘Blacks explained that these Jews had worked for two weeks and then been killed in the camp without saying how. [42] [43]

Belzec death camp was tiny, when compared to other extermination centres like Auschwitz-Birkenau, the north, west, and east sides each measuring 275 meters, and the south side 265 meters. It was built on a partly forested sandy ridge known as Kozielsk Hill. Three watchtowers were built at the corners of the camp, two on the east side, and a third at the southwest corner.

A railroad spur originally laid by the Oberschlesische Holzindustrie (Upper Silesian Timber Company) entered the camp area at the northwest corner via a sturdy wooden gate and a nearby wooden guard house. Belzec was in fact divided into two: Camp I, in the northern and western part was the reception area, included the ramp that could hold twenty cattle wagons, the assembly square for the Jewish deportees, and the undressing and storage barracks. Camp I also housed the administration area, which had two barracks that housed the Jewish prisoners. This area also included the roll-call square and the laundry, kitchen, and other barracks for storage. To the left of the entrance gate already mentioned was the Trawnikimänner area, which included their living quarters, a kitchen, plus their clinic, dentist, and barber.

Camp II, the so-called extermination area, included the three gas chambers and the mass graves, which were in the east and northeast areas of the camp. The gas chambers were surrounded by trees, and a camouflage net was placed over the roof to prevent observation from low-flying aeroplanes. As time went by, two barracks were erected in this area for the Jewish work brigades living quarters and kitchen. Camp II was segregated off from Camp I by barbed wire fences with a heavily guarded entrance gate.[44]

The undressing barracks in Camp I was connected to the extermination area by the so-called Schlauch (tube), some 2-meters-wide and 100-meters-long passageway enclosed on both sides by camouflaged barbed wire fences. The naked, doomed Jews passed through this passage way which led directly to the gas chamber facility.

The three gas chambers were etremely primitive, as have been described above, each chamber measuring 6 by 4 meters, and had a maximum capacity of 240 people in each chamber. The three chambers was constructed on concrete foundations and, after the gassing had taken place, the bodies were unloaded through the three doors at the rear of the chambers and transferred to the mass graves, using a narrow-gauge railway with tip-up trucks, though this method was later discarded.[45]

In Belzec village, two well-built stone houses near the station on Tomaszowska Street, were requisitioned from the Ostbahn (Eastern Railways), one of which served as Christian Wirth’s Kommandanturhis office and living quarterswhile the other house served as the living quarters for a number of the SS garrison. A third building, a peasants cottage adjacent to the Kommandantur, was requisitioned as the death camps general office. Next to the cottage, at the rear of the Kommandantur was an armoury. At the rear of the building that housed the SS garrison was a small stable. The complex was surrounded by a wooden fence and barbed-wire, with the exception of the roadside area, which was manned round-the clock by armed sentries.[46]

Some historical accounts claim that Richard Thomalla, from the Waffen-SS Bauleitung Zamosc, at General Drescher Straße 34, who built the Aktion Reinhardt camps at Sobibor and Treblinka, was involved at the commencement of construction in Belzec on November 1, 1941. However, this is unlikely as he was in Russia during this time as part of the constructing SS Strongpoints in the East program, which was under the control of Odilo Globocnik in Lublin. The British Intelligence Service at Bletchley Park intercepted and decoded German police messages using a replica Enigma machine, provided to them by the Poles.[47] Messages sent to Thomalla at Zwiahel on November 21, 1941, would seem to exclude him from overseeing the early stages of the construction of the death camp in Belzec. Of some note is that other key members of Globocnik’s staff, such as Hermann Dolp and Kurt Claasen in Minsk, Hermann Höfle in Minsk and Mogilev, and Georg Michalsen in Riga, were also employed on the Strongpoints in the East construction projects.[48]

On his return to Lublin in early 1942, he was involved in the latter stages of construction at Belzec, and there can be no doubt he supervised from the start the construction of the other two death camps that formed part of Aktion Reinhardt, Sobibor, and Treblinka.