23rd July 1944 – Majdanek death camp, near Lublin in south-east Poland, becomes the first major concentration camp to be liberated by the Allies when the Soviet Red Army arrives. It was also a vast forced labour camp and thousands of inmates, mainly Prisoners of War, were found there. It is not known how many inmates were murdered at Majdanek but estimates vary between 50,000 and 400,000 Jews, as well as PoWs and other nationals. On November 3rd 1943 18,000 Jews were killed at Majdanek in a single day as part of Operation Harvest Festival. Majdanek is the best preserved camp of the holocaust since the Germans evacuated hastily before the rapid Soviet advance and half the crematoria were found intact.
At Treblinka, the killing centre in eastern Poland, the last survivors are being killed to remove all evidence of the camp as Soviet troops move into the area. An estimated 925,000 Jews were murdered at Treblinka, as well as an unknown number of Poles, Roma and Soviet PoWs. All traces of the camp are removed and the site sown with lupins and disguised as a farm. A Polish carpenter, Max Levit, survives among the bodies of those shot.
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