by Gregory Downs

Created on: September 22, 2011   Last Updated: September 23, 2011

In the early part of the 1940s, the Majdanek Camp was originally a prisoner of war camp, detaining mostly Soviet and Polish prisoners of war. Approximately mid-way through 1942 a portion of the camp was blocked off and this portion became an extermination camp, and in April 1942 the first transport of Jewish prisoners arrived.

On April 24, 1942, a group of 2,000 – 2,500 Jewish people were sent to Majdanek after their ghetto at Majdan Tatarshi was liquidated. Of these only about 120 - 200 people were selected for a work detail, the rest were transported to the nearby forest and shot.

Of the many atrocities that happened at Majdanek Extermination Camp, November 3, 1943 is one day that would definitely go down in infamy for the human race. On this day the first of the prisoners were taken into the nearby forest and forced to dig large ditches. They were then forced to lie down at the bottom, and then they were shot. The next group of Jewish prisoners was taken to the same ditch, forced to lie down on the bodies and then they were shot. This action went on all day, and at the end of the day 16,000 – 18,000 Jewish prisoners were dead. This action was part of Aktion Erntefest – Operation Harvest Festival; such a nice name for such a horrendous event. It was in retaliation to Jewish inmate uprisings in the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps. Not only was this the largest of the mass murders in Majdanek, this killing was the largest single day, single location of the Holocaust.

Though Majdanek was not one of the extermination facilities that were part of Operation Reinhard as was Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka II, Majdanek did use gas chambers to exterminate the Jewish inmates much like these other facilities. In the beginning of gas chamber usage carbon monoxide was used, but shortly after October 1942, they started using Zyklon B gas crystals because it was a more efficient method of killing.

Majdanek Death Camp is unique among the other Nazi death camps in that it was openly visible from all around the camp. With most of the death camps the Nazis tried to keep their atrocities from becoming known, and the people in surrounding villages and communities could claim ignorance of what was being done behind the walls. A description of just how visible Majdenek was; “Because of its location, the camp could be seen from almost all sides…the southern perimeter ran just outside the boundary line of the villages Dziesiata and Abramowice, while the southern boundary almost touched the first buildings of Kosminek…”

At the end of 1943, there were 6,562 prisoners registered at Majdanek; 71 of these were Jewish; quite a difference from August before this. Then there 16,206 prisoners registered with 9,105 of them being Jewish, and 3,893 polish and other nationalities.

Majdanek was the first of the Nazi extermination camps to be liberated. Soviet troops captured Lublin, the town just outside of Majdanek on July 24, 1944, liberating the camp. Journalists were invited by Soviet officials to inspect Maydanek and give evidence of the atrocities found.

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