Majdanek (KL Lublin), German concentration camp, Lublin, Poland

Barrack No. 52.

Tools and equipment for cleaning the barracks and the camp grounds were stored here. Currently, the barrack houses shoes that were taken from Majdanek prisoners and Jews murdered during the “Aktion Reinhardt.” The SS authorities collected the victims’ footwear in barracks on the sixth field and on the camp grounds at the former airfield (Flugplatz).

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Majdanek (KL Lublin), German concentration camp, Lublin, Poland
Part 3 of 3: Liberation and Legacy

In July 1944, as the front approached Lublin, the SS began evacuating the camp, transporting prisoners to other camps in the western part of the Third Reich.

On July 23, 1944, Soviet troops liberated Majdanek, finding approximately one thousand surviving prisoners. During its operation, about 78,000 to 80,000 people died there, including over 59,000 Jews.

After the war, in 1947, the State Museum at Majdanek was established to commemorate the victims. The camp remains one of the best-preserved German concentration camps, serving as an important site of memory, education, and tribute to the victims of Nazi terror in Poland and Eastern Europe. Majdanek stands as a symbol of the human tragedy during the German occupation and a reminder of the crimes of World War II.

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Majdanek (KL Lublin), German concentration camp, Lublin, Poland
Part 2 of 3: Functioning and Daily Life

Majdanek was both a concentration camp and an extermination camp, where approximately 130,000 to 150,000 people from over 30 countries were imprisoned, including Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and other nationalities.

In October 1942, a separate camp for women and children was established. Conditions were inhuman: prisoners lived in overcrowded barracks, received minimal food rations, were forced into hard labor, and were brutally treated by the SS staff. Epidemics, hunger, disease, and exhaustion caused immense mortality. Majdanek differed from other extermination camps in that it was also a center for forced labor.

On November 3, 1943, during the “Erntefest” (Harvest Festival) operation, a mass execution of approximately 18,000 Jews was carried out, representing the largest single massacre of its kind committed by the Germans in concentration camps.

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Majdanek (KL Lublin), German concentration camp, Lublin, Poland
Part 1 of 3: Establishment and Beginnings of the Camp

The city of Lublin was occupied by the Wehrmacht in 1939. During the German occupation, it became a place of intense Germanization and repressive policies.

The Majdanek concentration camp (officially KL Lublin) was established by the decision of Heinrich Himmler (the Supreme Commander of the SS) during his visit to Lublin in July 1941. Construction of the camp began in the autumn of 1941, with command given to Odilo Globocnik, the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district. Majdanek was intended to be a forced labor camp for 25,000 to 50,000 prisoners, employed in the expansion of the Third Reich and local SS projects. The construction plan was repeatedly expanded; ultimately, in March 1942, a plan for a camp capable of holding up to 150,000 prisoners and captives was approved, which would make it the largest camp in occupied Europe. The first prisoners were mainly Soviet POWs who arrived in cattle cars under harsh conditions, without food or water, causing enormous mortality from the very beginning of the camp’s operation.

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KL Stutthof, German nazi concentration camp, Sztutowo, Poland (part 2 of 2)

It was said that the camp was created by neighbors for neighbors. Survivors recalled that they recognized their old German friends among the supervisors, with whom they had good neighborly relations before the war. However, KL Stutthof quickly became a real death factory. During its nearly six years of existence, from September 2, 1939 to May 9, 1945, 110,000 people from 28 countries passed through it. The Germans murdered about 65,000 people there, mostly Jews. Today, the Stutthof Museum is located on this site, which occupies only one sixth of the former camp. The rest is covered by forest.

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KL Stutthof, German nazi concentration camp, Sztutowo, Poland (part 1 of 2)

Konzentrationslager Stutthof was established in 1939 on the annexed territories of the Free City of Gdańsk (Freie Stadt Danzig), near the town of Sztutowo. It was the longest-operating concentration camp outside the pre-war borders of Germany. The first transport of prisoners arrived here on September 2, 1939, and numbered about 150 people. In total, about 110,000 prisoners from 28 countries passed through the camp.

Initially, ten wooden barracks were erected on an area of about 4 hectares, where prisoners were placed. This was the so-called Old Camp. From the very beginning, they were overcrowded, poorly insulated, lacking sanitary facilities and basic equipment. In such conditions, various types of parasites and vermin appeared. It quickly turned out that the plans had to be modified - Stutthof was to be larger than the camp in Auschwitz. At the turn of 1940 and 1941, an SS guardhouse and the camp commandant’s office building were built. When Heinrich Himmler arrived there in November, a decision was made for the Concentration Camps Inspectorate in Oranienburg to take over the camp from the local authorities to whom it was formally subordinate. On January 7, 1942, the camp formally became a concentration camp.

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German extermination camp Treblinka II (part 4)

The mechanism for dealing with the people deported to the camp and the method of their killing was developed by Christian Wirth, the inspector of the Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór camps

A typical transport contained up to 60 wagons - at railway station was divided into three parts, each was delivered to the camp separately. The average number of people in a wagon was 80-120

After the wagons were placed on the camp ramp, the people brought here left their luggage, taking documents and valuables with them. People with no strength, the disabled, the sick, the elderly and unaccompanied children were separated and then they were sent to the lazaret. There they were placed on a bench and killed by a shot to the back of the head

Healthy people were quickly led to the undressing area while being constantly screamed at and beaten. The newcomers were separated by gender. After entering the barrack, women had their hair cut off

Pushing into chambers and gassing was done by two Ukrainian guards who helped each other in these activities with a metal pipe and a sabre. The gasification process of crowded people lasted about 20 minutes. Sometimes this process was extended. The corpses together with blood and excrements were pulled out on the sloping floor of the chamber through manholes opened from the outside. After removing gold teeth from the corpses and removing valuable objects hidden in the body’s holes, the corpses were thrown into the pits. Later they were transported directly to the grates with leather straps, belts or wooden stretchers.

All the work, from unloading the transport on the railway ramp until the removal of the corpses of 5-6 thousand people from the chambers, lasted for 2-3 hours

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German extermination camp Treblinka II (part 3)

The grate.

Initially, the murdered were buried, then burned on grates. Cremation began in February 1943, immediately after Himmler’s visit.

The originator of the idea of building grates from railway rails was SS-Oberscharführer Herbert Floß. Brushes were placed under the rails and poured with gasoline. In this way, not only the freshest corpses were burned, but also those extracted from graves using an excavator. Additional grates made it possible to burn up to 12,000 corpses at the same time. The resulting clouds of smoke were visible from many kilometers away. By the end of July 1943, approximately 700,000 corpses were burned on grates. The ashes mixed with sand were buried.

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German extermination camp Treblinka II (part 2)

22,000 m2 of surface covered with concrete, on which 17,000 stones of various sizes were placed. This concrete covers the ashes of people murdered here. The stones symbolize matzevot - tombstones in the Jewish cemetery. The names of the cities from which Jews were brought were written on them.

Totenlager – the extermination camp, referred to by the prisoners as camp 2 or upper camp. The name “upper” was derived from the terrain. It was located on a small hill, in contrast to camp 1 (lower camp) located at the bottom.

The most important buildings here were the gas chambers. At the beginning of the functioning of the camp, three buildings were built (new ones were created as part of the reorganization carried out in August and September 1942).

Next to the gas chambers there was a room with an engine, most probably dismantled from a Russian tank, and a generator that supplied the camp with electricity. The outlet of the engine’s exhaust pipe was connected to the underground pipe and opened into all three chambers. Death was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, which caused paralysis of the central airways. The corpses were pulled out through manholes opened from the outside onto the ramp. They were loaded on wagons, which drove on special narrow tracks. After turning the wagon, the bodies were thrown down and the wagon was pulled for the next bodies.

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