Majdanek or
KL Lublin was a Nazi German concentration and
extermination camp established on the outskirts of the city of
Lublin during the German
occupation of Poland in World War II. Although initially purposed for
forced labor rather than
extermination, the camp was used to kill people on an industrial scale during
Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all
Jews within their own
General Government territory of Poland. The camp, which operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, was captured nearly intact, because
the rapid advance of the Soviet
Red Army during
Operation Bagration prevented the
SS from destroying most of its infrastructure, but also due to ineptitude of commandant
Anton Thernes who failed in his task of removing incriminating evidence of war crimes. Therefore, Majdanek became the first concentration camp discovered by Allied forces. Also known to the
SS as
Konzentrationslager Lublin, Majdanek remains the best preserved Nazi concentration camp of
the Holocaust.