The gas chamber complex itself was more elaborate than at Sobibor or Treblinka. Ten thick wooden chambers were aligned in a neat row on a broad concrete platform. Behind the chambers were five huge diesel tank engines. These were linked up to the chambers, one engine for every two buildings. The gas chambers faced south into the camp so that once through the SS entrenchments Shapira’s men would have direct access to the engines, where they could place their main charges. Shapira intended to use most of Roskovsky’s powerful bombs on the engines. For the chambers themselves he hoped the remaining bombs, grenade bundles and Molotov cocktails would be sufficient to set the buildings alight, or at least severely damage them.
Back at their camp in the forest Shapira devised a straightforward plan to attack Belzec early the next morning, two hours before dawn. Sandler’s platoon would use their heavy firepower—six MG-34s and a couple dozen MP put down a base of fire against the SS entrenchments, and also cover the flanks. Chaim would stay back and use his four remaining 40mm grenades and night-sighted Tavor to help with the suppression effort. Shapira would snipe for a bit too, then lead his demolition teams into the camp and go straight for the gassing complex. Any survivors would withdraw into the forest with Sandler’s men. In no case was Chaim to enter the camp, and after much disputation, Shapira won from Chaim a promise to leave him behind if necessary.
The planning done the two commandos sat under a tree and chewed on their last Powerbars. Shapira grimly thought what a tasteless and prosaic final meal it was, for a warrior likely to meet his end. “This isn’t at all like it was in ancient times” said Shapira, choking down a dry piece of vaguely peanut-butter flavored gloop. Chaim looked at him dully—he was devoted to his lieutenant, but not always interested in Shapira’s intellectual musings—Chaim liked to chat about soccer or basketball. “Then a warrior would have a fine feast, and drink himself into a stupor—by the time the battle started he probably hardly cared anymore if he lived or died.”
“If you say so” said Chaim, who was a teetotaler anyway.
“Did you ever read the Iliad in school?” pressed Shapira.
“The what…”
“A story about the ancient Greeks—written by Homer.”
“You mean the Odyssey? answered Chaim, whose mediocre high school education had taught him little of interest. “I saw a cartoon about that once.”
“No, the Iliad. It’s the story before the Odyssey. ”
“Beseder” yawned Chaim.
“What about the movie—Troy—did you ever see that?”
“The one about the Spartans?”
“No. With Brad Pitt.”
“I hate that guy.”
“Me too—but did you see it?”
“Yeah, I think so” said Chaim, tossing away a last inedible bite of his raspberry flavored bar. “It was long. Wasn’t the guy from Lord of the Rings in that one too?”
“I don’t know. The point is that movie is sort of like what’s happened to us.”
“What? Fighting with swords and shields—running around in sandals? Sorry lieutenant, I don’t get it.”
“The soldiers of the Iliad are on a quest—to rescue Helen—but the quest is false, created through the malevolence of the gods. They’re tossed into a war for the gods’ entertainment, but that war takes on its own meanings for them anyway Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“Not really. If I had to choose, this is more like the cartoon” said Chaim dubiously.
Shapira smiled and left the commando sergeant to doze under the tree. He met Sandler resting a few dozen meters away. Together they roused Sandler’s motley looking crew and with Shapira’s men and detailed the plan of attack. It was simple enough said one man—shoot then run.
Two hours later Shapira woke Chaim. It was close to midnight and moonless as they set off for Belzec. They moved through blackened forest with the practiced steps of woodland creatures, ready to dodge an SS patrol or ambush—but the Germans were not about. At two in the morning they saw the lights of Belzec burning ahead of them. For another hour the force infiltrated to positions in the treeline less than a hundred meters from the nearest German trenches.
There was nothing subtle about the attack. Shapira had read enough about World War II combat to know that the Germans frequently used massed machineguns as a kind of light artillery to beat down enemy positions. Now he turned the tactic on them, Four of Sandler’s MG-34s opened up at on the German trenches, knocking down patrolling guards and pinning the SS in their positions, while two others covered the flanks. When a German machinegun responded, Chaim put a 40mm grenade on it, and repeated the process, until he’d used all four, and took up sniping at the Germans with his Tavor. Shapira spent a couple of minutes in the treeline sniping as well, shooting at men he suspected were officers or squad leaders.
Three minutes after the first rounds were fired Shapira led his teams forward. They tossed grenades at the thin German wire and then attacked through it. Here and there a man got hung up, and one of Shapira’s sappers was shot down, but the rest made it through the beat-up German positions. Shapira ran ahead of his teams into the camp. Without pausing to return German fire, the demolition teams followed Shapira as he headed straight for the gas chambers beyond the German forward trench line. Two more men were hit along the way. One fell to the ground, the other blew up when bullets struck his Molotov, briefly setting him before the flames detonated his grenade bundle.
Shapira and most of his sappers reached the engines, huddling behind the machines as bullets richocetted around them. They began to unload their charges, when, as Shapira expected, the SS counter-attacked, The assault was swift and violent, but Sandler’s hammering machineguns made it difficult for the Germans reach around to the back of the gas complex. Shapira’s worked breathlessly to attach their charges as tracers arched around them and men on both sides shouted and screamed. Shapira kept his own charges packed, and moved among the sapper teams in the lee of the gas buildingsl He urged the men to stay calm and focused, lest they fail to set the charges properly, either blowing themselves up, or rendering the explosives inert. Sapper teams set the main charges under the engines, and tossed their grenade bundles and Molotovs at the buildings, as they had practiced. Then they ran back for the treeline, unspoiling detonating cord along the way. Once the guessed they were twenty meters away, the sappers hit the ground and detonated the charges.
As Shapira moved down the line from east to west he heard the welcome grinding roar of the first two tank engines being torn apart. In the no-man’s land between the gas complex and the treeline, sappers, including the dead and wounded, lay prone. Some were still leading out detonating cordi Some detonated the charges with their last breath. Shapira reached the team by the third engine. The pair of sappers planted the charge, then tossed their grenades and Molotovs. Shapira told them to run for the treeline with the detonating cord, while he moved off, crawling along in the slight defilade of the concret platform. The sapper stringing the cord fell fifteen meters from the engine. The second man grabbed the detonator from his dead comrade and ignited the charge, before a German bullet struck his neck, flinging him down upon the body of his friend. The charge detonated, wrecking the engine, while a chamber caught fire and began to burn.
Shapira felt the the conflageration on his back as he crawled toward the next team, working frantically at the fourth engine. As Shapira approached, their sachel exploded, blowing the two men up along with the engine. Shapira, protected by the platform, was partly deafened, but otherwise uninjured. Shapira looked about as best he could. It seemed that four engines and six gas chambers were wrecked, damaged or burning.