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Descent Into Terror

Forget palm trees and pristine sand; Lukasz Swiatek thinks you should visit some of the world’s most confronting travel destinations instead.

An oppressing silence, carried on a heavy fog, bears the quiet pain of ages. The grey haze seems interminable. It is broken only by occasional, quiet flutters of wings, as crows alight and amass, pecking for food. Shrivelled leaves roll gently along the ground; a thin sheet of frost covers the hoary, withered grass; and on the horizon, a dark smudge portends the threat of an encroaching storm.

The eye immediately notices the weather-beaten, roughly constructed barracks, corroded wire fences and unkempt pathways. Rust slowly consumes bath valves, and spiders weave their gauzy threads on cell doors. Perhaps most startling is barrack 52. Within, long mesh containers, lining the walls down the length of the building, exhibit hundreds of prisoners’ shoes. The smell of decay and rot is nauseating.

These are just several glimpses of a descent into terror.

Majdanek, a former German Nazi concentration camp, stands just on the outskirts of the town of Lublin in southeastern Poland. Of all the death centres, it is unique for its location, situated on the outskirts of the city, and not in a secluded, rural setting; the barracks, mausoleum and crematoria, which comprise the camp, are visible to many of the city’s residents.

Constructed in 1941, the camp could hold 50,000 prisoners at the height of its operation. Figures are inaccurate, and vary widely due to a lack of historical records, but between 78,000 and 200,000 prisoners were believed to have been exterminated at the site.

Indeed, Majdanek was the location of the largest individual-day, individual-site extermination during the Holocaust. On November 3, 1943, the SS launched operation ‘Erntefest’ (Harvest Festival) aimed at eradicating any lingering Jewish residents of Lublin, including prisoners of Majdanek. At least 8,000 Majdanek captives and 11,000 labourers from other Lublin camps or gaols were mass-murdered. During the process, music was played over loudspeakers across the camp in order to drown out the sounds of the terror.

Today, the camp is a national museum. Like other former concentration camps, it seeks to preserve the site’s structures; permanent exhibitions serve to educate visitors; and education centres facilitate onsite research and analysis. Majdanek, however, stands in stark contrast to Auschwitz-Belsen – the largest and probably most famous of the Nazi extermination camps – which is well tended and maintained. There are no gardeners in sight at Majdanek, though. The crude, primitive structures stand as they always have.

Concentration camps don’t usually leap to mind as ideal travel destinations for the leisure-inclined tourist. No postcard-perfect photographs to be taken. No idyllic or secluded retreats for relaxation. The moment you step foot on the damp loam of a concentration camp, its ominous presence is felt; its attendant horrors are re-awoken.

Certainly, trekking the aged paths is daunting, and the structures of the camp are chilling. But quite apart from terror, other feelings are stirred: empathy, memory, commemoration. If a profound solidarity rooted in basic humanness is what connects us to our fellow human beings, then, oddly enough, retracing the steps of innocent victims is perhaps one of history’s most instructive tools, one of its most stimulating forms of inculcating respect and understanding.

As you walk toward the boundary of the Lublin camp, an enormous mausoleum rises in front of you at the far end of the main field. An ominous edifice of rock, it stands next to the crematoria. Within its walls lies a mound of ashes – the amassed remains of victims. On its front, in immense letters, are inscribed these words in Polish: “Los nasz dla was przestrog±.” Loosely translated, it carries an eternally fitting, and utterly accurate message: “may our fate be a warning to you.”