Majdanek Concentration Camp

he 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. Majdanek was a unique camp because of its close proximity to Lublin, Poland. The citizens of Lublin knew about the camp. During the mass executions of Operation “Erntefest” or “Harvest Festival,” where over 18,000 Jews within the Lublin-area camps were executed in a single day, music was played in the camp and town to drown out the sounds of dying human beings. Soviet troops liberated the camp on July 24, 1944. It was found nearly intact for reporters to view and write about the horrors occurring in the Nazi camps. Overall, approximately 110,000 people were killed in the main camp alone, 70,000 of those were Jews.