Before we started our visit to Majdanek, we stopped at a building in Lublin. This building is where operation Reinhard was implemented. It was unsettling to see a building that is currently part of a university that was once a place where genocide was discussed, approved and put into plan. The camp was only located five minutes from our hotel. It was strange to eat breakfast and then visit a site of such historic atrocity.
"Operation Reinhard" took place mainly in Lublin and Warsaw districts, where concentration camps and death camps were located. In Lublin, the "Operation Reinhard" staff was situated (in the building which today is Collegium Iuridicum of The Catholic University of Lublin at Spokojna St. , headquarters of Odilo Globocnik? chief of police and SS in Lublin region (corner of today Wieniawska St and Czysta St) and his private villa (the building at Boczna Lubomelska St, usually photographed from the side of Leszczyńskiego St), as well as warehouses, where stolen property was segregated and stored (today the The Catholic University of Lublin library at Chopina 27 St).
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| Then.... |
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| Now... |
Majdanek was established on October 1941 as a Prisoner of war Camp and only became a concentration camp in 1943. Initially there were only two gas chambers using Zyklon-B but they were later replaced by many gas chambers.
The killing operations began in April 1942 and ended in July 1944. Majdanek provided slave labor for munitions works and Steyr-Daimler- Puch weapons factory.
The estimated number of deaths at Majdanek is 360,000, including Jews, Soviet POWs and Poles. Majdanek was the site of many mass shootings. In April 1942, 2,800 Jews were killed in this manner.
The camp was liberated in July 1944 by the Red Army. It was only partially destroyed and there were thousands of inmates in the camp. Additionally a thousand inmates were sent on death marches.
The entire time that we visited the camp, I could not wait to leave. I was curious to see all of the building, but everything was very run down. Unlike other camps, there is no fee to visit this camp. This is also an indication that there is no maintenance and upkeep. The camp is falling apart. I cannot describe the smell of the barracks. It was difficult to breath and many of us tried to hold our breath. Just trying to imagine what the experience was like for the prisoners was unbearable. We all had a sigh of relief to board the buses after our visit. No matter how many camps you visit, the experience does not get any easier.
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| Barbed wire everywhere |
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| Gas Chamber |
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| Entrance to Gas Chamber |
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| Rose Garden where selection was made.... |
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| Room where prisoners took showers (real showers) |
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| Storage room for Zyklon B |
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| Site of Mass Graves |
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| Rollers, physical labor |
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| Map of camp layout |
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| uncountable numbers of shoes. |
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| Barracks, I can never describe the smell |
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| Barracks |
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| Sign of life at this place of death |
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| Chimney at Crematorium |
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| Rose Garden outside of crematorium. We thought that it was a memorial, but it turns out that it was like this during the operation of the camp. |
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| Crematorium |
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