Remembering the liberation of Majdanek concentration camp 78 years ago

Majdanek was a Nazi concentration camp run by the Waffen-SS established near the city of Lublin in Poland in September 1941. From October 1941 it began to accept prisoners, most of whom were Polish and European Jews as well than Soviet prisoners of war. Here a pile of human bones and skulls are seen in 1944 at the Majdanek concentration camp. .AFP file

On the night of July 22-23, 1944, Russian soldiers arrived at Majdanek, the first of the Nazi camps to be liberated. They freed just under 500 prisoners and occupied the nearby town of Lublin on July 24. These were some of the barracks where prisoners lived. Wikimedia Commons/Roland Geider

Reconnaissance photograph of the Majdanek concentration camp taken on June 24, 1944, from the collections of the Majdanek Museum. Wikimedia Commons / Majdanek Museum

Majdanek Concentration Camp prisoner card from January 1944. Wikimedia Commons/Radzuweit

Showers at Majdanek: Jews were stripped of their clothes and personal effects, then sent to showers for a disinfection process before entering the gas chambers. Wikimedia Commons/Lidan

In this Majdanek gas chamber, prisoners were murdered with carbon monoxide. It took about 40 minutes to kill one person with carbon monoxide and only 10 with Zyklon B. Wikimedia Commons/Roland Geider

Those sent to Majdanek were subjected to the worst forms of treatment including starvation, forced labor, malnutrition and random executions. It also served as an extermination camp, with gas chambers and two crematoria. Here is a crematorium at the camp. Wikimedia Commons/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum na Majdanku

Russian soldiers examine the ovens of the burnt-out crematorium, after the camp was liberated in 1944. Wikimedia Commons/German Photo Library

Ms Zofia of Aleksandrow burns a candle next to the ashes of victims of the Majdanek Nazi death camp July 23, 2004 in Lublin during ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by the Red Army. .AFP file

Memorial to victims of different nationalities at Majdanek concentration camp. Wikimedia Commons/M Bucka