Majdanek At 5:00 on 3 November 1943, prisoners at Majdanek were awoken as usual in the dark, but the camp had been surrounded by an additional 500 soldiers during the night. The 3,500 to 4,000 Jewish prisoners lived among non-Jewish prisoners. After morning roll call, the groups were separated, with Jews ordered to go to camp 5. Jews in the infirmary were trucked to that location, while the non-Jewish prisoners at camp 5 were moved to camp 4. The barbed wire fence was repositioned to include the execution area within the cordon. Prisoners were forced to undress and driven in groups of one hundred to the three trenches in the field beyond the camp. At the beginning of a ramp leading to the trenches, the Jews were separated into groups of ten and forced onward to the trenches. Execution squads of 10–12 men each from police battalions and
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking were waiting, and were replaced every few hours. The prisoners were forced to lie down in the trenches and were shot in the
nape of the neck. About 600 prisoners, half men and half women, were selected at the
Lublin airfield camp to clean up after the massacre at Majdanek. The rest, approximately 5,000 or 6,000, along with 2,500 Jewish prisoners of war at Lipowa 7, were marched toward Majdanek. Despite being heavily guarded, the Jewish prisoners of war rushed their guards and tried to escape, reportedly shouting "Niech żyje wolność!" (Long live freedom!) Almost all were shot before they could get away. The first prisoners from the other camps arrived at Majdanek around 7:30 and continued to arrive throughout the morning. Among the Jews from Majdanek, some tried to escape their fate through suicide or by hiding in the barracks. The next day, twenty-three Jews were discovered and were executed at the Majdanek crematorium. The speakers, which had been installed the previous day, were turned on as soon as the gunfire started, but it could still be heard. Local Poles watched from the rooftops of nearby buildings outside the camp, while Sporrenberg observed from a
Fieseler Storch airplane. It is not clear who directed the operation as it was ongoing; it may have been Sporrenberg or
Hermann Höfle. The killing continued, uninterrupted until around 17:00 and by then all 18,400 prisoners had been murdered.
Trawniki Previous to the operation, Polish residents who lived adjacent to the camp were forced to move and those who lived a bit farther away were forced to stay in their homes. Jewish prisoners who lived in the settlement outside the camp proper were returned to the camp. At 5:00 on 3 November, the prisoners were mustered for roll call, rounded up, and marched to the
Hiwi training camp, where loudspeakers were playing music beside the trenches. The victims were ordered to disrobe and place their clothing in piles, then to lie face down on top of those already shot, and the executioner would dispatch them by a shot to the nape of the neck. Men were shot before women and children. The shooting was already well underway when prisoners from
Dorohucza arrived by rail at 7:00. After the trenches were filled, some Jews were executed at a sand pit in the labor camp. The execution of 6,000 Jews occurred continuously until 15:00 (or 17:00), with only a few managing to hide and survive.
Poniatowa Many of the SS and police soldiers who had been at Majdanek continued to Poniatowa, about distant, after the massacre had finished. The units participating in the massacre at Poniatowa included Reserve Police Battalion 101, Motorized Gendarmerie Battalion 1, Police Battalion 41, and Police Battalion 67. There were 14,800 Jews at the camp before the massacre, most of them having come from the Warsaw Ghetto. On 3 November, the Jews were sent back to their barracks after roll call. The camp was sealed and telephone lines were cut, so that the prisoners would not know what fate awaited them. Some thought that there was going to be a selection, and tried to make themselves look healthier. That evening, the camp was surrounded by 1,000–1,500 German and Ukrainian soldiers, who formed three concentric security cordons around the camp by morning. The next morning (4 November), at 4:30, the prisoners were awoken for roll call. Most were held in Hall 3, except 200 prisoners who were temporarily spared at the insistence of commandant
Gottlieb Hering, to clean up after the massacre. They were locked in the camp kitchen. Policemen searched the barracks and factory for anyone who was hiding, and then stood guard on both sides of the (main avenue) in the camp. Prisoners were ordered to strip naked, hand over all valuables, and walk down the Lagerstrasse in groups of 50, starting with the men. As loud music blared, the prisoners were herded to the two trenches by the entrance of the camp, long, wide, and deep. One soldier stood at the beginning of the trench with a whip to encourage the Jews to immediately lie down on top of the bodies of those who had already been shot. Two shooters stood on each of the long sides of the trench, shooting alternately at the victims, each equipped with a bottle of
schnapps and an assistant to reload their weapons. According to a witness, many of the victims were not killed and lay wounded in the trench as more bodies piled on top of them, cursing the SS. Around 14:00, the executions were halted for a lunch break and the drunk executioners were relieved. The trenches turned out to be too shallow and bloody corpses spilled out of the edges. Some prisoners in Poniatowa had formed a resistance group and had acquired a few weapons. At 18:00, a group of around 100 Jews set fire to some barracks full of clothing and then barricaded themselves in another barracks. The Germans set this on fire, killing all of the resistance members. Polish fire fighters were brought in to put out the fires and observed the Germans throwing wounded Jews into the flames. The executions finished around 17:00. Afterward, German soldiers checked the trenches, executing survivors. The corpses were sprinkled with lime and covered with fir branches. Three women survived, climbed out of the mass grave that night, and survived the war with the help of
Żegota. Overall, 14,500 people were killed within the span of a few hours. ==Coverup==