Collections

Small, chipped piece of a mirror with a black-and-white photograph showing the lower part of a face and a child’s bust. The artifact rests on a dark background.
The Museum and Memorial in Bełżec holds several thousand artifacts in its collections, donated, among others, by the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites in Warsaw, the State Museum at Majdanek in Lublin, the Janusz Peter Regional Museum in Tomaszów Lubelski, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

The largest part of the collection consists of artifacts from archaeological research conducted on the site of the former extermination camp between 1997 and 1999 by archaeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, led by Prof. Andrzej Kola. The research aimed to map the site, locate mass graves, and determine the function of the preserved camp structures. Using both hand-operated augers and test excavations, the investigations uncovered remains of the camp’s infrastructure and over three thousand relics belonging to the victims.

Archival color photograph from 1997 showing archaeologists and staff conducting test boreholes in the forest on the site of the former Bełżec camp. The men are using hand-operated geological augers to examine soil layers.

Among the found objects are everyday items – cutlery, combs, medicine bottles, toiletries, keys, small pieces of jewelry, boxes, and armbands with the Star of David. They provide a poignant testimony of the prisoners’ lives and their tragic fates. Objects related to the perpetrators of the crimes were also found, including bullet casings, which serve as material evidence of the murders carried out in the camp.

A portion of these relics is displayed in the permanent exhibition.

On a dark background lie two objects: a matte metal spoon and a white ceramic fragment of a plate bottom. The handle of the spoon bears an engraving of an eagle holding a swastika and the mark ‘F.W.W. 41’. The ceramic fragment shows a green print with two lightning bolts (SS runes), the inscription ‘-Reich,’ and the date ‘1940’.
Everyday objects marked with SS insignia