By Keyword:   Chapter PROLOGUE 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 EPILOGUE Or, Page Number: Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.		1942: The "Final Solution"  pg. 308    MAJOR DEPORTATIONS OF JEWS TO BELZEC, 1942 The Belzec extermination camp was the site of 600,000 deaths. Most of the victims were Jews from southern Poland, but the Nazis also deported Jews from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia to the killing center. Initially a labor camp, Belzec became an extermination facility in March 1942, with killings conducted first by carbon monoxide and then by Zyklon B. In spite of the orderly impression conveyed by this formation of SS guards, the killing process often went awry, inflicting horrendous suffering upon its victims. The guards jokingly referred to the killing site as the Hackenholt Foundation, named after SS Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt (second row, far right), who ran the diesel motor that produced the carbon monoxide. Photo: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive Organized into a column and with their meager belongings in sacks, Jews march into Belzec. The prisoners were deceived by their guards, who told them they had entered a transit camp from which they would be assigned to various labor camps. Instead, they were sent to the gas chambers. Photo: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive  March 2, 1942: Six Jews at the Janówska, Ukraine, labor camp near Lvov are forced to spend the night outside; all six freeze to death.  March 2, 1942: Children from a Jewish nursery in the Minsk (Belorussia) Ghetto are thrown into a sandpit, tossed sweets, and then smothered to death. More than 5000 Jewish adults from Minsk are also killed.  March 3, 1942: Belgian Jews are drafted for forced labor.  March 5, 1942: In the wake of the February 24 Struma sinking, the British War Cabinet reaffirms its decision not to allow "illegal" Jewish refugees admission to Palestine.   1942: The "Final Solution"  pg. 308  The Holocaust Chronicle © 2009 Publications International, Ltd.