Erich Muhsfeldt had a reputation of running the crematoria (ovens) in Nazi death camps. What was so significant about this job to the Nazi killing machine?
Erich Muhsfeldt was an SS officer in Germany and his activity was not as an ordinary soldier. He belonged to the system which assisted in the mass killings.
He had started working at Auschwitz. There he served in the cremation chamber, and ensured that the bodies were burnt within a short duration of time. This was to conceal the amount of people being killed. He did this job well hence he was later promoted.
Towards the end of 1941, he was relocated to Majdanek where he assumed the same duties.
Among the cruelest incidences that were linked to him was when he was participating in the Harvest Festival killings, in November 1943. Approximately 42,000 Jews were killed in two days at Majdanek and other neighbouring camps.
Once this mass killing had been carried out, the Nazis sought to erase all evidence as to what had occurred. Muhsfeldt was given the task of covering it up.
He presided over the mass graves being opened and made sure that the bodies were completely burnt, in a bid to destroy all evidence.
He was arrested after the war came to an end. In 1947, he was convicted in Krakow, Poland of crimes against humanity. He was put to death in 1948.
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