Bidspirit auction | Majdanek Concentration Camp - A

Majdanek Concentration Camp - A comprehensive study on the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp. Lublin, 1966 - Limited edition of 3,000 copies - “Camp de concentration de Majdanek” - “Majdanek Concentration Camp” - a comprehensive study of the extermination program at the Majdanek camp, by Edward Gryń and Zofia Murawska. Published by Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, issued on behalf of the State Museum at Majdanek. Lublin, 1966 - Second edition, limited to 3,000 copies. French. A detailed publication on the unique nature of the Majdanek concentration camp in comparison with other Nazi concentration camps established in Germany or in the occupied territories. The book demonstrates how the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp constituted a unique intermediate model between “classical” concentration camps and closed extermination facilities. Unlike operation camps such as Belzec or Treblinka, which were built as concealed and isolated killing machines, Majdanek functioned as a relatively open complex, visible to the civilian eye, in which forced labor, prolonged imprisonment, and extermination by gas and shooting took place simultaneously, without a full functional separation between the zones of life and death. Described here in detail: the camp’s construction plans, its organizational structure, the process of prisoner intake, the harsh living and food conditions, forced labor in the camp, methods of punishment (a particularly difficult chapter to read: “The SS men worked to poison every moment of the prisoners’ free time, and kept them in a state of constant nervous tension and fear... During evening roll calls, public punishments were carried out. The most common were beatings with clubs or whips inflicted on offenders who were stretched over a device specially designed for this purpose. The number of blows ranged from 25 to 100 depending on the offense committed. In addition to these official beatings, SS officers and ‘functionaries’ could beat and abuse prisoners with impunity and under any pretext...), women and children in Majdanek, the extermination process, the burning of bodies, looting, assistance from the civilian population, the resistance movement in the camp, and its final days until evacuation. The authors show how the camp functioned as an integral part of the SS regional control system in Lublin, including a central role in the collection, sorting, and storage of the property of the murdered. In this way, a direct link existed between extermination and the systematic economic exploitation of the victims’ property - a component that existed in other camps as well, but here it is evident on a particularly large scale and in an especially organized manner. Unlike other extermination camps, where the duration of the victims’ stay was extremely short, Majdanek was characterized by a shifting dynamic of prisoner populations - Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, political prisoners, and others - some of whom were held for extended periods under lethal conditions of hunger, disease, and forced labor, while others were exterminated immediately upon arrival. This combination of “slow” mortality (through conditions) and direct extermination makes it a clear case of a multi-purpose camp. Finally, another aspect of Majdanek’s uniqueness stems from the fact that it was not systematically destroyed during the German retreat in 1944. As a result, an extensive physical complex remained, gas chambers, crematorium, warehouses (“Canada”), and camp infrastructure - which enabled direct material documentation of the extermination mechanism, something exceptional in comparison with most Operation Reinhard camps that were almost entirely destroyed. This is an important documentary publication based on numerous sources, providing a detailed picture of how Majdanek operated. It is based on archival materials, survivor testimonies, and early research conducted by the museum. The book presents the structure of the camp, the living conditions, the mechanisms of repression, and the extermination processes that operated there during the German occupation of Poland, maps of the camp, as well as numerous photographs of various sections of the camp, victims’ bodies, the crematorium, and more. Cover design by Henryk Sulcz. 72 pages + 2 folding maps of the camp. Very good condition.