Editing Extermination camp (section)

== Dismantling and attempted concealment ==
[[File:Jewish prisoners forced to work for a Sonderkommando 1005 unit pose next to a bone crushing machine in the Janowska concentration camp.jpg|thumb|right|Former {{lang|de|Sonderkommando 1005}} slave laborers stand next to a bone crushing machine at the [[Janowska concentration camp]]. (Photo taken in August 1944, after camp's liberation)]]

The Nazis attempted to either partially or completely dismantle the extermination camps in order to hide any evidence that people had been murdered there. This was an attempt to conceal not only the extermination process but also the buried remains. As a result of the secretive {{lang|de|[[Sonderaktion 1005]]}}, the camps were dismantled by commandos of condemned prisoners, their records were destroyed, and the mass graves were dug up. Some extermination camps that remained uncleared of evidence were liberated by Soviet troops, who followed different standards of documentation and openness than the Western allies did.<ref name="Arad_1984">{{Citation |first=Yitzhak |last=Arad |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |title="Operation Reinhard": Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka|url-status = live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090318073143/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |archive-date = 18 March 2009|url = https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |work=Yad Vashem Studies&nbsp;XVI |year=1984 |pages= 205–239 (26/30 of current document) |quote=The Attempt to Remove Traces}}</ref><ref name="Davies98">{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |author-link=Norman Davies |year=1998 |title=Europe: A History |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=0-06-097468-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/europehistory00norm }}</ref>

Nonetheless [[Majdanek]] was captured nearly intact due to the rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during [[Operation Bagration]].<ref name="Arad_1984"/>