The details of Majdanek

This series of still photos highlights a few of the geographic features of this heinous death camp. The prisoner barracks are mostly gone. They have restored a section of these barracks to provide visitors an idea of the conditions contained therein.
We were more focused on the crematoria and what they represented...mass murder on a mechanised scale required a viable efficient waste disposal system. The crematoria filled these rolls perfectly. They belched smoke 24 hours a day.
When Sol and I entered the main oven room in this crematoria we were immediately overcome with a smell that we will never forget. This was the unadulterated smell of burnt human flesh. We could barely believe our sense of smell as the odour permeated the floors, walls and ceilings.
It was quite obvious that they were unable to rid these walls, floor and ceilings of these odours.
We literally could not stay in the crematoria confines for more than barely two minutes. We were both overcome and felt a nauseous, sickening sensation which left nothing to the imagination.
As I was taking more photos after our failed attempt to complete the Kadish prayer a security guard seemed to spring from nowhere and asked us to remove the bikes from this area.
I told him we would leave when we were ready to leave.
We eventually began to ride away, very slowly following the same route along the road containing the insidious guard towers and the barbed wire fences.
A short 500 meter ride took us to the actual car park and archives building. We entered and were greeted by a female attendant. We provided her with names of family members we knew had been interned in this camp hoping to have her go through her archives and find any information relating to their arrival and ultimate fate.
After sitting in the small front office for more than 20 minutes the woman returned and told us no information about any of the people we had listed for her was available.
Basically, she had simply gone to the locked rear section where the archives were supposedly situated. She probably had a coffee break and then left us with nothing.
We knew this was impossible. The Russians had liberated this camp before the nazis had the opportunity to destroy anything. The gutless Germans and collaborative Poles ran for their lives as the Red Army stormed in.
I suppose we could have offered her a big bribe to provide us with the information we were hoping to uncover. But frankly, we knew that would have been a big waste of money. She would have taken the money and given us the same answer we got.
Her demeanor and disdain for us told us the whole story.