Name of the camp from October 1941 to February 1943 - Kriegsgefangenenlager der Waffen SS Lublin - a camp for prisoners of war. In February 1943 – renamed Konzentrationslager Lublin – a concentration camp.

The camp is currently part of the The State Museum at Majdanek.

Getting there:

By car - The camp/museum is situated in the south-eastern suburbs of Lublin, along the road leading to Zamość and Chełm (DK 12/17). There is a fee to park in the designated lots.

By public transportation - If you are in the city center you can take bus 23 or trolleybus 156 at the Krakowska Gate bus stop (Królewska Street) and trolleybus 158 next to the Saski Garden (a bus stop in Lipowa Street). From the railway station you can reach the museum by bus 28, and from the bus station by trolleybus 156 (a bus stop in Lubartowska street). All the buses stop in front of the entrance to the museum.

The grounds and buildings of the former concentration camp at Majdanek cannot be visited by children under 14

Built just one and a quarter miles from the outskirts of Lublin, Majdanek began life as a prisoner of war camp in October 1941. However, Majdanek was unusual in that it was run by the Waffen-SS and was intended to supply labor for SS industries, especially armament works. The first inmates were Polish political prisoners, Polish Jews and 5,000 Soviet POWs who arrived in October 1941. It was in operation from October 1, 1941 to July 23, 1944 when it was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Union. Although conceived as a forced labor camp and not as an extermination camp, over 79,000 people died there (59,000 of them Polish Jews) during the 34 months of its operation. Other estimates given are an estimated 100,000 Jewish victims and up to 200,000 non-Jews killed.

Among German concentration camps, Majdanek was unusual in that it was located near a major city, not hidden away at a remote rural location. It is also notable as the best-preserved concentration camp of the Holocaust - there had been too little time for the retreating Germans to destroy the evidence before the Red Army arrived.

The camp today occupies about half of its original 2.7 km2 (ca. 670 acres), and—but for the former buildings—is mostly bare. A fire in August 2010 destroyed one of the wooden buildings that was being used as a museum to house seven thousand pairs of prisoners' shoes. The city of Lublin has tripled in size since the end of World War II, and even the main camp is today within the boundaries of the city of Lublin. It is clearly visible to many inhabitants of the city's high-rises.