Video: 'Majdanek concentration camp' (parts 1-5)

(Sunday, July 23, 1944; part of The Holocaust, during World War II) — Red Army soldiers discovered the abandoned Majdanek concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin in eastern Poland today, marking the first Nazi camp to be freed from German control.

Despite hasty efforts of the Germans to burn the camp to hide its purpose, the Russians found the remains of gas chambers.

Operational since October 1, 1941, Majdanek featured seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and approximately 227 structures, making it one of the largest Nazi concentration camps.

Initially intended for forced labor rather than extermination, Majdanek became a site of mass murder during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to annihilate all Polish Jews within occupied Poland.

Video: 'World at War - Genocide' (Lublin/Majdanek liberation at 47:40)

In less than three years of operation, an estimated 78,000 people, including 59,000 Jews, were murdered at Majdanek.

The camp was captured nearly intact due to the rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration, which prevented the SS from destroying most of its infrastructure.

Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes failed to remove the most incriminating evidence of war crimes.

After the camp’s liberation, the site was formally protected by the Soviet Union. By autumn, with the war still ongoing, it had been preserved as a museum.