Until the very last moments of Majdanek’s functioning some attempts were made to dismantle the camp infrastructure, shipping away equipment, and covering up the crime evidence. Bodies were burned and documents were destroyed. Just before the final evacuation transport left KL Lublin, the SS set the crematorium building on fire. The garrison, however, did not have sufficient time to destroy all evidence of their genocidal activities.
Camp Liquidation
Due to the progressing offence of the Rad Army in the spring of 1944, the Germans made preparations for the evacuation of Majdanek. The command of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate gave the evacuation order in late March. From April, the prisoners were systematically transferred to other camps: Natzweiler, Gross-Rosen, Auschwitz, Plaszow, Ravensbrück and Mauthausen. Over 10,000 inmates were evacuated in those transports.
The Last Transport
The final liquidation of KL Lublin happened on 22 July 1944. The prisoners were escorted outside Lublin in the column of 800 prisoners of Majdanek and 200 more from the labour camp in Lipowa Street. Inmates were forced to march over 100 kilometres until they were loaded into a train in Ćmielów. KL Auschwitz was their final destination. Prisoners who could not keep up with fast marching pace were murdered on the side of the road. Several dozen inmates managed to escape. Eventually exactly 837 of them reached Auschwitz. The Red Army troops entered the abandoned Majdanek camp grounds on 24 July 1944. The only people they encountered were the 985 Soviet invalids kept in the lazaret of field II.
The history of KL Lublin came to an end, but its prisoners’ suffering continued. Many of them did not live to see the day of liberation as they later perished in various concentration camps scattered across the territory of the Third German Reich.
