Majdanek
On December 8, 1941, Majdanek was designated for 150,000 prisoners of war and civilian internees. The SS officers planned large industrial complexes in the Lublin area to be served by the labor force from Majdanek. Polish Jews and prisoners of war began the construction in the fall of 1941. It lasted at the end of 1942. However, the SS focused on the industrial construction, leaving the prisoners to live in conditions where there was no barracks, no water, and no latrines.
Shooting was the first major method the Nazis used to eliminate the inmates. In addition to shooting, prisoners were killed by hanging and drowning. Others were strangled, beaten, or trampled to death. As gas chambers came into place, gassing became the most common method of mass murder. Technicians built seven gas chambers and used carbon monoxide and Cyclone B. Gassing usually occurred at night when the prisoners were asleep.

Majdanek was intended as the central camp for the Government General. Government General was one-third of Poland that was reserved for the Poles while the Germans planned to live in the remaining area. As the Government General's major camp, Majdanek had four branches in Blizyn, Budzeyn, Random, and Warsaw. It was the Nazi's second largest camp with a large inmate population. Opposed to public myth, Majdanek was not established primarily as a killing center. However, gassing machinery was added in the fall of 1942. Thus it began its part in the murdering of Jews. In less than three years of existence, the mass shootings and the gas chambers took away lives from 360,000 victims.			With the prisoners sleeping in the opening during its early days, the camp later contained 144 barracks, each built to house 300 persons. Before 1943, the prisoners slept on straw spread in thin layers on the bare ground. Each block measured 40 by 9 by 2 meters and contained 250 bunks. 500 to 800 prisoners crammed into that little available space. The barracks leaked and the floors were covered with mud. There was no sewage system until 1943. An SS squad of 1,200 personnel ran the whole camp of ill prisoners.
Newly arrived prisoners were always stripped of everything they brought with them. The Nazis confiscated all of them, including jewelry, money, shoes, dentures, toys, toilet outfits, gold teeth, and clothes. Personal property of Jews collected in Majdanek valued more than $ 72 million. They also made good use of the prisoners' hair - for knitting socks for soldiers.				The tortures from the Nazis were comparable to any other camps. They constantly flogged and beat the prisoners. At one time, an officer punished a woman for calling out to her husband in the men's sector. He tied the naked woman to the bench, and flogged her with his henchmen until the pain caused her to lose control of her bowels. Laughing at the scene, he kicked her and forced her to clean up her excrement with her hands. Elsa Erik, superintendent of the women's area, was notorious for her jealous actions. During roll call, she would select an inmate with a shapely figure. She then brutally whipped the woman on the breasts and kicked her in the pelvis with her boots. The victims usually died.

On November 3, 1943, the largest camp execution occurred. In one day, the SS shot 18,400 Jews in ditches near the crematorium. The massacre lasted for the whole day. First, the guards gathered the Jews into a field and ordered them to strip. Then they drove the Jews to the ditches and forced them to lie, face down. The SS machine-gunned them. The next group of victims placed themselves on top of the dead bodies before they were shot. That process went on until the ditches filled. Following the massacre, prisoners covered the ditches with thin layers of dirt. Wood was used in the cremation. After the burning, the prisoners cleared the graves. They grounded bone pieces into powdered fertilizer.

In April 1943, the Nazis started to evacuate the Majdanek. The first prisoners were transported to Germany. When transportation went down, the prisoners marched on foot across Europe. The advancing Russians came in time to liberate only a few.