Facing History & Ourselves in Europe 2008

Today, we visited another concentration camp in Poland called Majdanek. This camp was created because of Rinehart Heydrich’s assassination in Prague, which led to the deaths of many Jews in the ghettos as well as the deaths of 1,000 citizens of Prague. Under Heinrich Himmler’s orders, Majdanek opened in the fall of 1941. It was initially a prisoner of war camp used to house Soviet POWs, however, it was eventually turned into a concentration camp. Between April of 1942 and July of 1944, extermination took place in Majdonek using gas chambers and the crematorium. The capacity of the camp was originally meant for about 50, 000 inmates and was referred to as a ‘little Auschwitz” because it contained everything that the larger camp had, but on a much smaller scale. When we arrived at Majdanek, we noticed how closely located the camp was to the city. This made us realize that the people who lived in this area had to know what was going on in the camp. It is impossible for things to go unnoticed if they occur in someone’s backyard. In fact, after the Russians forces liberated this camp, they made the residents of the town come in to bury the dead bodies. Once again, it became clear that reading about the Holocaust in class is completely different than being physically present in a concentration camp. Standing in Dachau, Auschwitz, or Majdonek is a much more emotional learning experience. 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS