WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

The Liberation of Majdanek The Red Army's liberation of Majdanek in July 1944 was one of the most significant moments in the history of World War II and the Holocaust. Above Image: Soviet soldiers inspect the ovens at Majdanek, July 1944. Courtesy of Deutsche Fotothek. On the night of July 22-23, 1944, soldiers of the Red Army came upon Majdanek, the first of the Nazi camps to be liberated. They freed just under 500 prisoners and occupied the nearby city of Lublin on July 24. What Soviet and Polish researchers uncovered and documented behind the camp’s electrified barbed wire, soon reinforced by the investigative work conducted by others outside of the USSR, definitively shaped our understanding of the Nazi genocide. While still largely unfamiliar to most Americans, the liberation of Majdanek was one of the most significant moments in the history of World War II and the Holocaust. Its name, taken from Majdan-Tatarski, a suburb of the major industrial center of Lublin, Majdanek...