Editing Belzec extermination camp (section)

==Victims==
[[File:2 Nota 8.jpg|thumb|left|Page 7 from "[[Raczyński's Note]]" with Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibor extermination camps – part of official note of [[Polish government-in-exile]] to [[Anthony Eden]], 10 December 1942]]

The historian Eugeniusz Szrojt in his 1947 study published by the ''Bulletin of the [[Institute of National Remembrance|Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland]]'' (''Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce'', 1947) following an investigation by GKBZNwP which began in 1945, estimated the number of people murdered in Bełżec at 600,000.<ref name="Małczyński-42">{{cite journal | url=https://www.academia.edu/2626602 | title=Drzewa "żywe pomniki" w Muzeum – Miejscu Pamięci w Bełżcu [Trees as living monuments at Bełżec] | journal=Współczesna Przeszłość, 125–140, Poznań 2009 | date=19 January 2009 | access-date=8 August 2013 | author=Jacek Małczyński | pages=39–46}}</ref> This number became widely accepted in the literature. [[Raul Hilberg]] gave a figure of 550,000.<ref name="Hilberg-pg">Raul Hilberg, ''The Destruction of the European Jews'', Yale University Press, 2003, revised hardcover edition, {{ISBN|0300095570}}.</ref> [[Yitzhak Arad]] accepted 600,000 as minimum,{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=52, 177}} and the sum in his table of Bełżec deportations by the city exceeded 500,000.{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=52, 177}} Józef Marszałek calculated 500,000.<ref>{{cite book | author=Joseph Poprzeczny | year=2004 |chapter=Notes to Chapter VII |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2arPruq8lhIC&pg=PA400 | title=Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East | publisher=McFarland | via=Google Books | access-date=9 August 2013 | page=400 | isbn=978-0786481460}}</ref> British historian [[Robin O'Neil]] once gave an estimate of about 800,000 based on his investigations at the site.<ref>[[Robin O'Neil]], [http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/belzec/Belzec.html A Reassessment: Resettlement Transports to Belzec, March–December 1942]. ''JewishGen'', Yizkor Book Project. Retrieved 9 August 2013.</ref> German historians [[Dieter Pohl]] and Peter Witte,<ref name="witte-tyas"/> gave an estimate of 480,000 to 540,000. Michael Tregenza stated that it would have been possible to have buried up to one million victims on the site although the true number of people murdered is probably around half that number.<ref name="Tregenza1988">{{citation |last=Tregenza |first=Michael |title=Report on the Archeological Investigation at the Site of the Former NAZI Extermination Camp in Belzec, Poland, 1997–98 |location=Lublin |year=1998 |url=http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/ftp.py?camps//aktion.reinhard/belzec/Archeological_Report/}}</ref>

[[File:Hoefletelegram.jpg|thumb|right|This document, the so-called [[Höfle Telegram]], confirms 434,508 Jews were murdered at Bełżec in 1942.]]

The crucial piece of evidence came from the declassified [[Höfle Telegram]] sent to Berlin on 11 January 1943 by Operation Reinhard's Chief of Staff [[Hermann Höfle]]. It was published in 2001 by Stephen Tyas and Peter Witte.<ref name="witte-tyas"/> The radio telegram indicated that 434,508 Jews were deported to Bełżec through 31 December 1942 based on numbers shared by the SS with the state-run [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#1939-1945: The Reichsbahn in the Second World War and the Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRG)]].<ref name="witte-tyas">{{cite journal |last1=Witte |first1=Peter |last2=Tyas |first2=Stephen |date=Winter 2001 |title=A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during 'Einsatz Reinhardt' 1942 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=468–486 |doi=10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 |doi-access=free | issn = 1476-7937 }}</ref> The camp had ceased to operate for mass-murder by then. The clean-up commando of up to 500 prisoners remained in the camp, disinterring the bodies and burning them. The ''Sonderkommando'' was transported to [[Sobibor extermination camp]] around August 1943 and murdered on arrival. "In our view," wrote Pohl & Witte in 2001, "there is no evidence to justify a figure higher than that of 600,000 victims."<ref name="Pohl-Witte">{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/13501670108577932 | title=The number of victims of belżec extermination camp: A faulty reassessment | journal=East European Jewish Affairs | volume=31 | pages=15–22 | year=2001 | last1=Pohl | first1=Dieter | last2=Witte | first2=Peter | s2cid=162068368 }}</ref>

The [[Holocaust train]] records were notoriously incomplete as revealed by postwar analysis by the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes against the Polish Nation.<ref name="Mazur">The ''[[Armia Krajowa]]'' communiqués detailing the number of trains arriving at Operation Reinhard death camps augmented by the demographic information regarding the number of people deported from each ghetto, were published by the [[Polish Underground State]] through the ''[[Biuletyn Informacyjny]]'' newspaper (BI) on behalf of the exiled [[Polish government-in-exile|Polish government in London]]. {{cite web |url=http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/13%20Article.htm |title=The ZWZ-AK Bureau of Information and Propaganda |work=Essays and Articles |publisher=Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association, London Branch |year=2013 |access-date=1 December 2013 |author=Grzegorz Mazur |archive-date=27 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121027095031/http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/13%20Article.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> The difference between the "low-end" figure and other estimates can be explained by the lack of exact and detailed sources on the deportations statistics. Thus, Y. Arad writes, that he had to rely, in part, on [[Yizkor]] books of Jewish ghettos, which were not guaranteed to give the exact estimates of the numbers of deportees. He also relied on partial German railway documentation, from which the number of trains could be gleaned. Some assumptions had to be made about the number of persons per each Holocaust train.{{sfn|Arad|1999|pp=52, 177}} The [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn calculations]] were predetermined with the carrying capacity of each trainset set up at 50 boxcars, each loaded with 50 prisoners, which was routinely disregarded by the SS cramming trains up to 200% capacity for the same price.<ref name="Encyclopedia"/>

The Höfle's numbers were repeated in [[Korherr Report]] suggesting their common origin. Other sources, like Westermann's report,<ref name="Gilbert217">For the Westermann's Report, see {{cite book |title=Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past |author=Martin Gilbert |author-link=Martin Gilbert |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AAg4D2xaNV0C |quote=an official wartime report in which Lieutenant Westermann, a German police officer in the reserve, describes the deportation of 8,000 Jews from the Eastern Galician towns ... in a single (thirty-wagon train) ... on September 10, [1942,] after more than three days on this journey without food or water ... reached Belzec, 2,000 of the 8,000 deportees were dead [on arrival].|isbn=978-0231109659 |date= 1999 |publisher=Columbia University Press }}</ref> contain the exact data about the number of deported persons, but only estimates of the numbers of those who died in transit.<ref name="Gilbert217"/>