Majdanek was a Nazi concentration camp and death camp established in November 1940, just outside the Polish city of Lublin. Initially, it served as a labor camp for Jews, political prisoners, and Soviet prisoners of war. In the autumn of 1942, Majdanek was converted into a death camp for Jews from Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Greece. Of the 500,000 people who passed through Majdanek, more than 360,000 died from starvation, exhaustion, disease, beatings, and the camp's gas chambers. Majdanek was liberated by the Soviet Army in July 1944.
