In May 1940, the Germans built a labor camp for Jews in Belzec, a small town in the southeastern part of the Lublin district in Poland. The Jewish inmates were put to work at building fortifications and anti-tank trenches on the German-Soviet frontier. The camp was closed in late 1940. In late October, 1941, construction of an extermination camp at Belzec began as part of Operation Reinhard. The camp was built along a railroad siding half a kilometer from the Belzec railroad station. The anti-tank trenches on the camp premises were given a new purpose: mass graves for the Jews who would be murdered there.
