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The decision of Heinrich Himmler marked the start of the German concentration camp Majdanek in Lublin. The camp was supposed to be a major centre for a potential free labour force to build a German empire. The camp's original layout plans were updated several times, with the camp's area and expected inmate population increasing each time. The general plan, approved in March 1942, called for the construction of a 150,000-person camp. Majdanek was supposed to be occupied Europe's largest concentration camp. However, defeats on the eastern front prevented these plans from going into effect. The camp was first known as a 'camp for prisoners of war', but in February 1943, it was renamed Konzentrationslager Lublin, a concentration camp. The German authorities' plans for Majdanek did not end with a POW camp's official functions and a concentration camp. KL Lublin also carried out the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. It also served as a detention and transit centre for Poles from the countryside.

The SS area, the administration area, and the prisoner area, which housed detainees in wooden barracks, were the three sections at Majdanek.
Because of their primitive construction, lack of proper hygiene, and overcrowding, the barracks hurt the prisoners' lives and increased the camp's mortality rate. The crisis was complicated by the lack of water, fuel, clothing, and medicine. Although the grand plan to build a children's camp at Majdanek never materialised, the camp hosts some Jewish and Polish children from the surrounding area. On the grounds of Konzentrationslager, Lublin was also a military hospital for Soviet prisoners of war.

The inmates came from nearly 30 different countries. Prisoners from Poland (Jews, Poles) predominated, but prisoners from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, France, and Germany were prisoners. From the beginning, hunger, anxiety, hard labour, and diseases were linked to the prisoners' stay at the camp. They were fined heavily and prosecuted for any crimes they committed. The prisoners' lives were constantly in danger. They died as a result of dreadful working conditions, as well as executions and gas chamber deaths. 80,000 of the 150,000 prisoners who entered Majdanek were killed, according to the most recent report. To erase the evidence of the murders, the bodies of those who died and those who were killed were burned in the crematorium. The Lublin concentration camp's egregious past came to an end on July 22, 1944.