Majdanek, << my DAH nehk, >> was a wartime prison and concentration camp that Nazi Germany set up in Poland. It operated during World War II (1939-1945). The camp stood on the edge of the eastern city of Lublin. Majdanek’s urban location was unusual, as most Nazi concentration camps were hidden away in remote areas. German Schutzstaffel (SS) troops and police managed the camp. The SS was a special Nazi military group.
Majdanek opened as a forced labor camp for Soviet prisoners of war in October 1941. Large numbers of people—mainly Jews—from Lublin and other areas began arriving at the camp in early 1942. Prisoners worked under terrible conditions within the camp or in nearby Krepiecki Forest. They worked in a variety of fields, including construction, farming, metalwork, sanitation, and textiles. Many thousands died of abuse, disease, exposure, overwork, or starvation.
In 1942, Nazi Germany began Aktion Reinhard (Operation Reinhard), a plan to kill the roughly 2 million Jews living in German-occupied territory in what had been central Poland. Majdanek, primarily a labor camp, saved many Jews from quick deaths in mass killing centers. Majdanek prisoners, however, were executed if they were considered too weak to work. Some prisoners were shot, and many were killed in gas chambers. The Germans burned the corpses in crematoria (furnaces for cremating dead bodies).
In the autumn of 1943, armed Jewish resistance grew rapidly in Poland. Fearing revolts in the labor camps, SS and German police units shot about 42,000 Jews in the Lublin region on November 3 and 4. The killings at Majdanek took place on November 3. Around 18,000 victims were shot just outside the camp walls. Some 8,000 of the victims were Majdanek prisoners. The rest were from smaller nearby labor camps and prisons.
In July 1944, with the Soviet Red Army approaching, the Germans abandoned Majdanek. The Germans destroyed the crematoria, but they did not have time to dismantle the gas chambers and other buildings. Soviet soldiers liberated Majdanek’s survivors in late July. Parts of the camp survive today as a memorial and museum.
Majdanek’s victims were mostly Polish Jews. However, Jews from several other countries also died there. Many prisoners of war, Roma (sometimes called Gypsies), and others died in the camp. It is estimated that 80,000 to 110,000 people died at Majdanek. Some earlier estimates put that number much higher.
See also Concentration camp ; Holocaust ; Nazism ; Schutzstaffel (SS) .
