From Jennifer Rosenberg,
Your Guide to 20th Century History.
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Majdanek

Late in October, about 300 prisoners from Majdanek were taken out behind Compounds V and VI, near the crematorium, and told to dig. They were to dig three trenches, approximately 100 meters long and 2 meters deep, in a zigzag line.

For the killing, about 100 SS men and police came from Auschwitz and elsewhere to supplement the staff at Majdanek. Two trucks with loudspeakers entered the camp in preparation for November 3 - one was placed near the camp gate (near the road) and the other was placed near the newly dug trenches.

On the morning of November 3, the prisoners went through the routine process of roll call. At the end of roll call, the Jewish prisoners from Compounds III and IV were ordered to step forward and to create a separate column. These and thousands of other Jews from nearby camps, factories, and labor squads were taken to Compound V to await execution.

In groups of 100 (men and women separately), the Jewish prisoners were taken to the lavatories and forced to undress. They were then taken, naked, through a hole in the fence of Compound V (hole cut by Schutzlagerführer Thumann). From the hole in the fence, the prisoners passed through a corridor bordered by armed policemen. Once at the ditches, they were forced to lay down and then shot by SS-men standing on the edge of the trench. Following groups were made to lay on top of the newly dead of the earlier groups.

• Total Killed: In Majdanek on November 3, approximately 18,000 Jews were murdered. This day was known as "bloody Wednesday" among the remaining Majdanek prisoners.
• Cremation: The Nazis kept 311 Jewish women and 300 Jewish men alive to sort the clothing and other possessions of those just murdered. After the sorting was done, the women were sent to Auschwitz and gassed on arrival. The women were forced to cremate corpses, and then they too were killed.

End of Aktion Reinhard

The mass murder of approximately 43,000 Jews on November 3, 1943 during Aktion Erntefest signified the end of Aktion Reinhard. This was a very bloody day in history.

Bibliography

Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985.

Marszalek, Jozef. Majdanek: The Concentration Camp in Lublin. Warsaw: Interpress, 1986.