Majdanek, also spelled Maidanek, was a concentration and extermination camp on the south-east border of the town Lublin in Poland. Hence this killing center earned the name of Lublin-Majdanek. Camp Majdanek, originally intended for prisoners of war, was initiated on 21 July 1941. The first transport directed toward Majdanek consisted of five thousand Soviet POWs. Arriving in the fall of 1941 they soon died of starvation and exposure to the harsh climate of the season. All subsequent transports were made up mainly of Polish Jews, although it is a known fact that also Polish prisoners were shipped to Majdanek. In the autumn of 1942 the camp was converted into a death camp for Jews, imported first from Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (15,000) and next from rural Poland (36,500), but also from the Netherlands (6,000), and from Greece. These were followed by seventy-four thousand Polish Jews from the Warsaw, Bialystok, and Lublin areas. Like other camps, because of scant information and lack of documentation found, the number of Jews exterminated varies. The number of Jews killed at Majdanek has been estimated to be between 100.000 and 250,000. Of these, the majority were Polish. Estimates of the total number of people who died at Majdanek, whether through execution or simply by having the very basics of life denied, ranges widely from 250,000 to 500.000. It may never be known how many Soviet prisoners of war were executed at Majdanek or at any of the other extermination centers. Their number must run into the multi hundreds of thousands.

       Initially, victims were killed by mass gunfire in a nearby forest and the bodies were buried in mass graves. A particularly deadly day for the Jews occurred in November 1943. In reprisal for resistance actions in the ghettos and the uprising and escape from both Sobibor and Treblinka, the Nazis decided to expedite the murder of Jews in the Lublin district calling this action Aktion Erntefest - Operation Harvest Festival. The method of killing as used in Aktion Reinhard - Operation Reinhard was implemented later (Majdanek was not part of this action, yet as deathcamp it worked with equal efficiency). Gas chambers were built for mass executions using Zyklon B pellets. These pellets produced quick-killing hydrogen cyanide fumes. Afterwards, the bodies of the victims were cremated.

       As recorded above, a strong partisan movement had been developed in the Lublin district. Moreover, in both Sobibor and Treblinka death-camps, Jewish inmates rose up against the SS barbarians. In retaliation, following the rebellion at Sobibor and Treblinka, most of the Jewish prisoners at Majdanek, some 42,000, were annihilated in a massacre which was euphemistically referred to as Aktion Erntefest - Oparation Harvest Festival. This action included the machine-gunning of 18,000 Jews in a single day. They were shot on the 3rd of November 1943. They were made to line up in front of ditches the victims had to dig themselves. Toward the end of the war the SS tried to obliterate all traces of this massacre, using prisoners who had been brought in from nearby labor camps. When Russian soldiers liberated Majdanek on 24 July 1944, only a few hundred prisoners of various nationalities were alive.

       Majdanek could boast more commanders in its short lifetime than any other camp. In quick succession command over the camp went to the following SSers; First, SS-Standartenführer - SS-Colonel Karl Otto Koch, from September 1941 to July 1942, second, SS-Hauptsturmführer - SS-Captain Max Kögel from August until October 1942, third, SS-Führer und KZ-Lagerkommandant - SS Leader and concentrationcamp commandant Hermann Florstedt from October 1942 until September 1943 when he was executed by the Nazis for corruption in 1943, forth, SS-Obersturmbannführer - SS-Lt. Colonel Martin Gottfried Weiß from September 1943 to May 1944 and fifth, SS-Obersturmbannführer - SS-Lt. Colonel Arthur Liebehenschel from May until 22 Juli 1944. But the actual authority rested with SS Obersturmführer - SS-1st Lt. Anthony Thernes. Thernes acted with cruel authority under all five commandants. He was captured by the Soviets and tried and executed on the spot.

       Karl Otto Koch, the first commandant of Majdanek, was soon relieved of his command. He was charged with stealing from the camp warehouses where plunder taken from the Jewish victims was kept. He was tried by a German court and executed before the end of the war. Hermann Florstedt also was executed by the Nazis after he was convicted by a Nazi court on charges of stealing from the camp warehouses. Strange as it may seem under the given circumstances, there were 800 recorded cases of cruelty and corruption in concentration camps which were tried by Dr. Konrad Morgan, the legal investigator for the Kripo, Kriminal Polizei - Criminal Police in the Reich - Empire. As a result, a total of 200 SS men, who at one time or another, were in charge of concentration camps were convicted. Included in this ignominious group was the notorious Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow. This camp of horror became well-documented as a result of the movie "Schindler's List."

       Two commandants of the Majdanek camp were tried by the Allies after the war; Max Kögel was sentenced to death by a British court in 1946 and Martin Weiss received the death sentence in an American court, also in 1946. Arthur Liebehenschel, the last commandant of the camp, was sent to Majdanek in 1944 after having served as the commandant of Auschwitz I for several months. When Majdanek was evacuated in July 1944, he was sent to Triest. After the war, Liebehenschel was convicted by the Supreme People's Court in Krakow and executed. The trial of the remaining Majdanek SS officers and regular officers finally took place in 1976-77 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

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Lublin as seen from inside Majdanek camp