March 17, 1942
Deportations from Lublin to Bełżec Begin
Historical context
On this day, March 17, 1942, German authorities began mass deportations from the Lublin ghetto to the Bełżec killing center.
Archive record
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- Date
- March 17, 1942
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 5
On this day, German SS and police began the first mass deportations of Operation Reinhard from the Lublin ghetto to Bełżec. Transports from Lwów (Lviv) followed the same day. Bełżec had tested its gas chambers on smaller nearby groups in February. Mass killing started with these March trains.
By 14 April 1942, German authorities had killed nearly 30,000 of Lublin’s about 37,000 Jews, most at Bełżec and others in nearby shootings. Between March and December 1942 the Germans deported about 434,500 Jews, and an unknown number of Poles and Roma, to Bełżec.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Belzec: Key Dates · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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