Barracks at Majdanek Concentration Camp
Guard Tower - Majdanek
Barbed Wire Fence - looking in Majdanek
Black Crow on Fence - Majdanek
After a short bus ride, our group gathered for a briefing about our upcoming visit to
Majdanek, a camp and killing center located four miles from the city, and unlike most camps, visible from all sides. Director Tomasz Kranz gave us a short intro to the history of the camp. Constructed in Oct. 1941, Majdanek served as a center for the realization of the so-called "
Final Solution to the Jewish Question".
The majority of the prisoners were Jews, mainly from Poland, but also from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, and France. The second largest group of prisoners was Polish Catholics. Among an estimated 150,000 prisoners who entered Majdanek, 80,000 people, including 60,000 Jews, were killed. In order to remove the traces of the crimes, the Germans burned the corpses on pyres or in the crematorium. The camp occupied an area of 670 acres. On November 3, 1943, the largest single-day of killing in a single location during the Holocaust took place at Majdanek. The Red Army liberated the cap on July 23, 1944 making Majdanek the first concentration camp liberated by the Allies. Soon after the liberation, the first Holocaust museum was created there.
Our visit took place on a dreary and cloudy summer day. The air was filled with humidity and the clouds threatened rain. Large black crows flying in groups added to the eerie feeling of being in such a horrific place. Much of our group followed the group leader in entering the barracks, but several of us were unable to walk through the interior rooms. Emotions were hard for some of us to control as we came to the realization that Majdanek was the first of four camps that would tell the story of the Holocaust in such real terms.
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