The liberation of the Majdanek concentration camp
July 24, 1944: Majdanek: the Red Army liberates the Majdanek Concentration Camp.
In late July 1944, the 1st Belorussian Front units discovered a German concentration camp near the Polish city of Lublin. It was the first of the death factories the Red Army was to encounter.
The Majdanek concentration camp was built in the summer of 1941 at the order of SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, and captured Soviet soldiers became its first prisoners in October of 1941. Originally, the camp was designed to hold 20,000-25,000 inmates, but was soon expanded. In 1942, the first mass extermination was carried out using Cydone-B gas, and from then on Majdanek was both a forced labor camp and a death factory. In 1943, a huge crematorium was built to dispose of the bodies, incinerating up to 1,500 people a day.
Both prisoners of war and civilians were held at Majdanek - Jews and Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, men, women and hordes of children. The latter the Germans used for medical experiments and as blood donors. The Soviet soldiers discovered several barracks packed with shoes, cut women’s hair, and hundreds of thousands of eyeglasses, as well as a special vault filled with golden teeth and dentures, which were pulled from the prisoners' mouths before they were sent to the gas chambers.
In the three years Majdanek was in operation, nearly 1,500,000 people were imprisoned there, and over 300,000 of them were murdered. By July 23, when the concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet troops, only several thousand people had survived.
In late July 1944, the 1st Belorussian Front units discovered a German concentration camp near the Polish city of Lublin. It was the first of the death factories the Red Army was to encounter.
The Majdanek concentration camp was built in the summer of 1941 at the order of SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, and captured Soviet soldiers became its first prisoners in October of 1941. Originally, the camp was designed to hold 20,000-25,000 inmates, but was soon expanded. In 1942, the first mass extermination was carried out using Cydone-B gas, and from then on Majdanek was both a forced labor camp and a death factory. In 1943, a huge crematorium was built to dispose of the bodies, incinerating up to 1,500 people a day.
Both prisoners of war and civilians were held at Majdanek - Jews and Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, men, women and hordes of children. The latter the Germans used for medical experiments and as blood donors. The Soviet soldiers discovered several barracks packed with shoes, cut women’s hair, and hundreds of thousands of eyeglasses, as well as a special vault filled with golden teeth and dentures, which were pulled from the prisoners' mouths before they were sent to the gas chambers.
In the three years Majdanek was in operation, nearly 1,500,000 people were imprisoned there, and over 300,000 of them were murdered. By July 23, when the concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet troops, only several thousand people had survived.