82ND ANNIVERSARY
OF THE LIQUIDATION OF KL LUBLIN
Majdanek Memorial
Today, alongside Survivors, residents of Lublin, and representatives of local authorities and institutions, we paid tribute to the victims of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. KL Lublin, where more than 130,000 people deported from almost all of German-occupied Europe were imprisoned, was liquidated 82 years ago.
On July 22, 1944, the last evacuation transport left Majdanek. At the same time, fierce fighting began in Lublin between defending German units and the advancing Red Army. This topic was the focus of a lecture by Krzysztof Tarkowski from the Archives of the State Museum at Majdanek, who analytically reconstructed the military operations that took place in the city until July 25, 1944.
Following the lecture, attendees took part in a themed tour guided by the accounts of former KL Lublin prisoners, Jan Michalak and Andrzej Stanisławski. Their voices—in the form of recorded audio testimonies—also accompanied the participants of the commemoration during the ceremony at the Mausoleum, where we laid flowers to honor the memory of those murdered at Majdanek.
In connection with the Soviet military offensive in the spring of 1944, preparations began for the liquidation of Majdanek. The central authorities of the concentration camps ordered it at the end of March. From April onwards, prisoners were transferred to the camps of Natzweiler, Gross-Rosen, Auschwitz, Płaszów, Ravensbrück, and Mauthausen. Almost all prisoners, more than 10,000 people, were evacuated in these transports.
Until the final moments of Majdanek’s operation, the dismantling of barracks, the removal of camp equipment, and the erasing of the traces of crimes continued. The bodies of the victims were burned, and incriminating documents were destroyed. Before the departure of the last transport, the camp staff set fire to the crematorium. However, there was not enough time to eradicate all proof of KL Lublin’s tragic history.
The final liquidation of the camp took place on July 22, 1944. The prisoners were marched out of Lublin in
a column consisting of 800 people from Majdanek and more than 200 from its subcamp on Lipowa Street. They had to walk more than 100 kilometers before the Germans forced them onto a train in Ćmielów, with KL Auschwitz as its final destination. Those who could not keep up with the murderous pace were killed on the spot by the escorting guards. Barely several dozen people managed to escape, while 837 prisoners eventually reached Auschwitz. The Red Army entered the almost completely deserted Majdanek camp on July 24, 1944. Only in prisoner field II did they find 985 prisoners of war from the infirmary for disabled Soviet soldiers.
The history of KL Lublin came to an end, but its prisoners continued to suffer and die in concentration camps scattered across the German Reich. Many of them did not live to see liberation.
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