Location:

Outskirts of Lublin, Poland

Original use:

Constructed by the Nazis as a concentration camp in 1941

Operational:

October 1941 – July 22, 1944

Operated by:

German Schutzstaffel (SS); the NKVD (after WWII)

Commandants:

SS Standartenführer Karl Otto Koch
(September 1941 – July 1942)

SS Sturmbannführer Max Kögel
(August 1942 – October 1942)

SS Obersturmführer Hermann Florstedt
(October 1942 – November 1943)

SS Obersturmbannführer Martin Weiss
(November 1943 – May 1944)

SS Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebenschel
(May 1944 – July 1944)

Estimated deaths:

Over 79,000; mostly Polish Jews

Liberated:

July 22, 1944 by the Red Army – captured nearly intact as the camp was near the former Soviet border and there was too little time for the Nazis to destroy evidence