Where is Majdanek? What is so interesting about it?
I wouldn’t have visited Majdanek (above picture) if I didn’t receive an invitation to speak in the 28th European Congress of Head and Neck Radiology (ESHNR 2015), held in the historic city of Krakow, Poland. The organising chairperson of the meeting was Professor Agnieszka Trojanowska (Lublin University). We have met many times in our academic careers, and I thought it would be nice to visit her hometown of Lublin en route to Krakow from Warsaw.
One of the perks of being an academic is the opportunity to participate in workshops, seminars, and conferences in far-flung places – places I might never have had the chance to go to if I have elected to stay in private practice. We take a few days of our annual leave and stick them to the front or the back of official academic activities.
After an initial short stay in Warsaw, we (my wife and I) took a train to Krakow, stopping over in Lublin for three days. Majdanek is located not far outside Lublin in the serene Polish countryside. It was here that an estimated 80,000 victims perished in the Nazi concentration camp.
Majdanek began operations in October 1941 with 2000 Soviet prisoners of war. They were soon joined by rounded-up Jews from Lublin and elsewhere. When the Soviets liberated Majdanek in July 1944, they found the crematorium and gas chambers largely intact, making Majdanek the best-preserved camp of the Holocaust.
Today it houses the Majdanek State Museum and an educational centre devoted to the memory of atrocities committed in a network of slave-labour, concentration, and extermination camps around Lublin.
Dr. Viktor Frankel, a renowned psychiatrist and survivor, told his story in “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He concluded prisoners that who survived were those with powerful reasons to live. They adapted to situations they could no longer change by changing their attitude which was under their control.
He noted the apparent paradox where prisoners who were less physically hardy could often survive better than those who were initially more robust. The difference in outcome was what went on in their mind. Frankl related how one man kept his focus on seeing his child and his family again after the war – his reason to live. Another (a scientist) wanted to complete his research. Both these fellow prisoners survived. And those who lost their will to live, amongst other reasons, perished.
I feel sorry for those who suffered and survived those who suffered but perished. The visit to Majdanek was not only educational (“interesting”), it was good for my spiritual wellbeing. Compared to those who suffered sub-human conditions, I shouldn’t be complaining about anything. I should be grateful for the live I have. And why should I feel otherwise?
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
