Majdanek

Last weekend, my friend Lara took us to the town of Lublin, where she had studied Polish for two summers. It's a quaint old town with a lovely castle, but the highlight for me was the opportunity to see the nearby concentration camp, Majdanek. It's the third concentration camp I've visited, and it was a completely different experience from anything else I'd seen. Firstly, since Lublin is off of the main tourist route, a lot less people visit Majdanek, compared to Auschwitz-Birkenau or Dachau. As a result, the experience seems much more intimate, and much more haunting. Secondly, a big part of the Nazi regime involved positive propaganda. They produced films and articles explaining the concentration camps as "rehabilitation" centers. They worked very hard to limit the population that knew what happened in the camps, and tried to hide the prisoners from local citizenry. This was not the case at Majdanek. The train tracks stopped in the town of Lublin, so prisoners walked 3 kilometers from the train station to the camp. In Lublin, there were no secrets as to what was happening at the camp.

Himmler visited Majdanek upon its opening, and had great plans for the expansive space. Majdanek was ultimately destined to be a "super camp," housing the largest number of prisoners, and serving as the final destination for Jews, Romas, political prisoners, homosexuals, POWs, Russians, and all other groups that the Nazis were attempting to eradicate. Fortunately, the Nazis were pushed out of Poland and the war ended before this plan ever came to fruition.

What is left today are the surviving parts of the camp, presented in a very raw form. There are still "bath houses" with walls stained blue from the Zyklon B, work stations, watch towers overlooking work fields, and the fully intact crematorium. Majdanek is considered the most intact of the remaining concentration camps from the Holocaust, and it presents a very real picture of the short, harsh lives people there suffered. I learned incredible amounts at Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Dachau when I visited, but this is a very different experience emotionally. The camp houses are now spread among green fields, and it seems almost calm if you can forget the atrocities that happened there...but you can't, not even for a second. There are crows everywhere, cawing and circling around the camp. If you think about mythical stories of crows, of how they are supposed to represent the dead, the camp seems all the more removed from reality.

The blue on the walls of the gas chambers is traces of remaining Zyklon B. 

Prisoners at Majdanek were expected, as in all camps, to do a grueling amount of work. The work fields and camp houses are still visible on the grounds, today.

Part of the "security system" of the Majdanek Camp. More than 500 prisoners successfully escaped Majdanek, a rare feat as compared to other concentration camps. This was in large part due to help from the Lublin locals, who witnessed mass extermination of their own population, in addition to "new arrivals" being brought in at the local train station. 

One of the most eerie spots to visit is this old bunkhouse, now filled with shoes of the prisoners brought to Majdanek. There are cages stuffed full of shoes from men, women, and children. It's a completely different presentation than the prisoners shoes at Auschwitz, and, for me, made the reality of what prisoners expected (a "resettlement in the east, some hope for the future), more poignant. 

At the entry to Majdanek, where the gate used to stand, there is a monument dedicated to the memory of those who suffered at the camp. However, the most moving part of the experience for me, was seeing the mausoleum that stands at the back of the camp, next to the crematorium. There is a large, round structure that reads, "Let our fate be a warning for you." In the open center of the memorial are the ashes and bones of those who were murdered at Majdanek. Never have I seen something so real or powerful as that memorial. It is haunting, but it certainly serves as a reminder of the truth behind the camp's operations; if you'd forgotten where you were, it will remind you. It says "never again" more strongly than anything I've previously seen. 

The Majdanek Memorial Mausoleum and a Nazi watchtower.

The ashes at the Majdanek Memorial Mausoleum. 

When my friend Lara was taking me to Lublin, she told me that she thought I'd appreciate the opportunity to witness Majdanek, and that she hoped the trip would mean a great deal to me. Having had the chance to see this camp is something that I'll be eternally grateful for, as I know it is something I will never forget. The more I've studied history of Eastern Europe recently, the more I have come to realize that the Holocaust was far from the most recent example of this sort of horror and genocide in the modern, developed world. However, memorializing this history, and making people aware of the example it sets to not allow societies to commit these kind of crimes, is something that truly resonates with me. We may not have lived up to the concept of "never again," yet, but I think knowledge is power in continuing to strive toward that ideal.