THE NAZI YEARS OF PERSECUTION 1933-1945 | |
Kulturbund concerts Last communication Majdanek death camp Hell on earth |
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MAJDANEK DEATH CAMP |
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The Majdanek death camp, to which Leonore Schwarz Neumaier
was deported in 1942, is located near Lublin, Poland. The Nazis called the
extermination center Konzentrationslager Lublin. Like other Nazi killing centers—Auschwitz, Sobibor, Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and the many others—Majdanek was operated with systematized cruelty. Some of the new arrivals were selected for hard labor. Those deemed unable to work were commanded to undress and surrender all belongings and jewelry. Their hair was shorn to be sent to Germany for manufacture into cloth and they were herded into the shower room for alleged bathing, disinfecting, and delousing. They then were gassed. Majdanek camp records reveal that of the approximately 500,000 who were incarcerated, nearly 200,000 perished from starvation, disease or back-breaking labor, and 160,000 were killed outright by methods that included hanging, drowning, poison injection, shooting and gassing. |
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Majdanek death camp crematorium. The five furnaces built in 1943 burned 100 bodies per day. Eventually this secretive method of disposing of bodies was not sufficient and open outdoor fires were required. |