Majdanek Death Factory Claimed 78, 000 Victims
Another little-known fact is that with its seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, it was actually one of the largest of the SS concentration camps.
Unlike all other death factories, Majdanek was liberated (captured) relatively intact – due to rapid advance of the Red Army and ineptitude of Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes. Hence, it provided a treasure trove of incriminating evidence of war crimes of the SS.
It did not help, however, to instantly arrived at more or less correct estimate (even an estimate) of the number of victims claimed by this death factory – as recordkeeping at every killing center was deliberately poor. Initially, a ridiculously high number of 360,000 was put forward which was later reduced to 235,000.
The Soviets propaganda predictably grossly overestimated the number of murders, claiming at the Nuremberg Trials that there were no fewer than 400,000 Jewish victims, and the official Soviet count was of 1.5 million victims of all nationalities.
The official estimate of 78,000 victims, of those 59,000 Jews, was determined in 2005 by Tomasz Kranz, director of the Research Department of the Majdanek State Museum, calculated following the discovery of the H;fle Telegram in 2000.
Konzentrationslager Lublin was established in October 1941 on the orders of Reichsf;hrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The original plan drafted by Himmler was for the camp to hold at least 25,000 Soviet POWs.
After large numbers of Soviet prisoners-of-war were captured during the Battle of Kiev, the projected camp capacity was subsequently increased to 250,000. However, the reality bit (it usually does) and Majdanek never grew beyond the capacity of 50,000 inmates.
With the commencement of Operation Reinhard, Majdanek was made into a secondary sorting and storage depot at the onset of Operation Reinhard, for property and valuables taken from the victims at the killing centers in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
However, it soon became clear that these death factories did not have the capacity to “process” all Polish Jews by the deadline specified by Himmler. To remedy the situation, Majdanek was refurbished as a killing center around March 1942.
Initially, serial mass murder was performed by shootings (by the squads of Trawnikis – local collaborators), but soon it was – predictably – determined that their efficiency leaves much to be desired.
So, in September of 1942, stationary gas chambers were installed and made operational. They used the same method as the one in Auschwitz-Birkenau – serial mass murder by Zyklon-B.
Mass killings were carried out in Barrack 41 with crystalline hydrogen cyanide released by the Zyklon B. The same poison gas pellets were used to disinfect prisoner clothing in Barrack 42 (no surprise here).
Until June 1942, the bodies of those murdered at Majdanek were buried in mass graves – like in Operation Reinhard death factories. These were later exhumed and burned by Sonderkommando 1005.
From June 1942, the SS disposed of the bodies by burning them, either on pyres made from the chassis of old lorries or in a crematorium. The so-called First Crematorium had two ovens which were brought to Majdanek from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Operation Reinhard continued until early November 1943, when the last Jewish prisoners of the Majdanek system of subcamps from the District Lublin in the General Government were massacred by the firing squads of Trawniki men during Operation “Harvest Festival” (murder by shooting of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps).
Between December 1943 and March 1944, Majdanek received approximately 18,000 so-called “invalids”, many of whom were subsequently murdered with Zyklon B. Executions by firing squad continued as well, with 600 shot on January 21, 1944; 180 shot on January 23, 1944; and 200 shot on March 24, 1944.
In late July 1944, with Soviet forces rapidly approaching Lublin, the Germans hastily evacuated the camp and partially destroyed the crematoria before Red Army arrived there on July 24, 1944.
Majdanek was the best-preserved camp of the Holocaust due to incompetence by its deputy commander, Anton Thernes (he was captured, tried and executed by the Soviets). It was the first major concentration camp liberated by Allied forces, and the horrors found there were widely publicized.
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