Introduction

The ‘Majdanek’ concentration camp was located from 1941-1944 in the Generalgouvernement district of Lublin, just outside the city of Lublin. Its conception was in line with the aims of the Generalgouvernement administration at the time, which consisted of the Wehrmacht (civilian authority) and the SS and police apparatus, who were responsible for the enactment of anti-Jewish policies in the region as well as the economic and cultural subjugation of Jews and Poles (Mailänder, 24). In July 1941 Heinrich Himmler, SS Reichsführer appointed Odilo Globocnik to oversee construction of a camp to hold 25,000 – 50,000 prisoners for the use as forced labourers on SS projects and enterprises in Lublin (USHMM). Initially, it was officially designated as a ‘prisoner of war camp (KGL) of the Armed SS in Lublin’; it held some Soviet POWs, especially during its initial construction phase, however its primary function and operation was as a concentration camp that even fell under the authority of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps (IKL) (Mailänder, 28). It is likely that designating the project as a POW camp was advantageous to Himmler due to the increased priority of the Eastern war effort against the USSR giving it more legitimacy, as well as reducing the risk of civilian authorities attempting to exercise their control over the camp at the expense of the SS.

            There were two main characteristics of the Lublin district that when combined with the events of the war effort set the stage for the systematic murder and forced labour of Jews and other prisoners at Majdanek during the Holocaust. One was the extensive control at the hands of Himmler and the SS, which shaped Majdanek into the gruesome camp and killing centre it became. This control was widespread throughout the Lublin region within the Generalgouvernement as it became a crucial military corridor to supply troops and armaments to the front and during the invasion of the USSR. The other was the demographic conditions within the district itself increasing the prominence of the “Jewish Question”. Mailänder described Lublin as a “racial-political testing ground” due to its role as a resettlement area for Jews that had forcibly been displaced from the Reich in the late 1930s – early 1940s (Mailänder, 26). In addition to this, the influx of Poles and Jews who had been displaced from annexed territories led to a much higher concentration of Jews under the authorities in Lublin by 1940 than in comparison to the Reich, which in 1939 had recorded a Jewish population of just 0.28% of 68 million citizens (Mailander, 25). Initially, the ghettoization of the Jews in Lublin as well as the wider Generalgouvernement was implemented as a temporary solution to be followed by a mass relocation to Soviet Belarus. However, with the increased importance of the Eastern front in the Reich’s war effort, Himmler’s plans for the resettlement of the Lublin district along the lines of ‘Volkstumspolitik’ (a racial settlement and population policy for Eastern Europe) took priority, calling for the settling of the region by ‘authentic Germans’ in a policy that was in line with Hitler’s wider aim of ‘Lebensraum’ (Living Space) for ethnic Germans. What this meant for the Jewish population in Lublin was unfortunately an increase in ethnic cleansing and anti-Jewish policies, although historian Dieter Pohl notes that: “The continuity of murder in the Generalgouvernement affected Poles as well as Jews. Shootings, ill-treatment, and abuse were a constant under German rule” (Pohl, 181). Eventually, the combination of military setbacks on the Eastern front, dramatic reductions in housing, food and hygiene conditions in the region, and poor harvests in 1941-42, as well as the deemed impossibility of the Belarus relocation plan, would ultimately create the conditions for the imprisonment and eventual systematic murder of Jews and other groups in Lublin which was realised through the Majdanek concentration camp.

In this exhibit, I will examine the changing functions and characteristics of the Majdanek concentration camp through the lenses of the SS operations in Lublin/Majdanek, the conditions within the camp and its subcamps, and the eventual systematic murder of Jews and other prisoners as well as the possibility of resistance. Ultimately, I intend to show how the Majdanek camp functioned with respect to the wider context of World War II and the Holocaust, as well as how these greater forces impacted those imprisoned during the lifespan of the camp.