Tag: Majdanek Concentration Camp

Located towards the rear of Majdanek, these are execution ditches which were dug in November 1943 to bury the bodies of around 18,000 Jewish prisoners who had been murdered. There are three of these ditches and bodies were stacked and then set on fire.

There are some questions about why these ditches were dug in a zig zag shape and why so close to the houses at the rear of the site. It’s said that the Nazis played loud music to disguise the sound of the killings, although I suspect it would have been hard to entirely hide from local people what was happening here.

This is a modern column which was designed by Witold Marcewicz and placed here in 2013. The timing was deliberate as it marked the seventieth anniversary since a number of Poles erected a similar looking sculpture in the field with the national symbol of eagles.

The Nazis hadn’t allowed the Poles to place the column up out of a gesture of goodwill, but rather because there was a visit by the Red Cross in 1943 and they wanted the camp to look decorated and welcoming. The Red Cross also brought food into the camp and it seems from what I’ve read that the prisoners were actually given it.

I’m slightly confused as to exactly what went on and when at Majdanek because the Red Cross did have some involvement at the camp during 1943, even securing the release of some prisoners. Although they were only released into Lublin, which was under Nazi control anyway.

The Nazis stole the property of Jews, and others who they imprisoned in concentration camps, on an industrial scale. They were sent to Germans who needed assistance, especially those who were settling into Poland, as well as sending some shoes on to other concentration camps.

When Majdanek was liberated the Soviets found 430,000 pairs of shoes, a number almost beyond imagination. There were so many shoes here because Majdanek was used as the storage site for property stolen at a number of other camps, and the Germans fled without time to send them on.

There is a story behind every single pair of those shoes, although unfortunately it’s not a story that will be told. The shoes of children, men and women, stolen by the Nazis when the victims arrived at the camp.

Sadly in 2010 there was a fire in Majdanek and 10,000 shoes were destroyed in the blaze. And in November 2014 it was discovered that a visitor had cut into the wire mesh and stolen around eight pairs of shoes. It’s hard to find words to comment on that sort of theft.