by Vhynie Louba Giana Solari Alicia Bell Antonio Acito Majdanek by Vhynie Louba Giana Solari Alicia Bell Antonio Acito

Establishment The camp started being constructed on october 1941. The camp started out with 2,000 soviet prisoners of war. Almost all of the soviet prisoners were too weak to work so most died by February 1942. Heinrich Himmler established the camp. The SS Standenfuhrer Karl otto operated the camp and was in charge. The camps purpose was to hold prisoners of war. The camp was operated by ss soldiers and the camp was divided into two parts, one part for the ss soldiers and the other for the prisoners.

Killing Method Gassing (Zyklon B, or fumes from captured soviet tanks) Execution by squad Hanging

Notable Halina Birenbaum - writer, poet and translator Otto Freundlich - one of the artists included in the Nazis' 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition Rudolf Vrba - transferred to Auschwitz, from which he escaped, and about which he co-authored the Vrba- Wetzler report, one of the first inside reports of the camp, and published during wartime.

Resistance In Majdanek the inmates never resisted but the Polish fighters did attack the Germans at the camp often. The Nazis were fearful that the inmates would resist but they never did.

Liberation In late July of 1944, the Soviet troops approached Lubin, Germans evacuated the death camp. The camp was officially liberated on July 24 by the Soviets. Majdanek was the first major concentration camp to be liberated. Soviet officials invited journalists to inspect the camp and evidence of the horrors that had occurred there.

10 New Facts Polish jews brought from other concentration camps were the ones that built the camp. The camp at the end was designed to hold 250,000 prisoners Mid-June 1942, some 7,000 Slovak Jews were diverted from Auschwitz and Belzec to Majdanek. The camp started using the mass murder operation using gas in October 1942 It was located within the boundaries of a major city Majdanek also served as a detention center for real and suspected members of the Polish underground resistance in the Generalgouvernement and for Poles suspected of violating the harsh provisions issued by the German occupation authorities that governed labor discipline. Majdanek also frequently served as a transit camp The Majdanek concentration camp was not designed as an extermination camp, but during its operation, tens of thousands of Jews were killed in gas chambers, shooting operations, by disease, and starvation. Approximately 110,000 people were killed in the main camp alone, 70,000 of those were Jews. Soviet troops liberated the camp on July 24, 1944