Space of Remembrance

The plans and maps in the museum's collection, both those drawn up by the Germans during the construction of KL Lublin and those related to the museum's post-war activities, present the transformations in the topography of Majdanek from the beginning of the camp's existence, through its transformations and liquidation, to the present day. This helps to understand why part of the historical building fabric was destroyed and which elements of it have been preserved in the spatial layout of the memorial site.

In the autumn of 1941, in the eastern suburbs of occupied Lublin, the Germans began the construction of a concentration camp. The plan from October 1941 envisaged dividing it into 10 prisoner fields with a total area of 60 hectares and building 236 barracks. Elements of this plan include five fields that have been preserved to this day. The general construction plan of 18 February 1942 envisaged the creation of a camp complex for 150,000 prisoners. Growing difficulties with raw materials and transport related to the Eastern Front forced a reduction of the project. As a result of the works conducted between the turn of 1941/1942 and the spring of 1943, the following were built: the SS sector, the economic complex and the prisoner camp consisting of five fields. Throughout its existence, until its final liquidation on 22 July 1944, the camp underwent systematic expansion and planning changes, which were closely connected to the economic, extermination and military policies of Nazi Germany in the occupied Lublin region.

The space occupied by the camp during the war also changed after the evacuation of the SS personnel and the liberation of Lublin from German occupation. From the summer of 1944 to the summer of 1946, units of the Polish People's Army were stationed in the prisoner field I. At the beginning of August 1944, the Soviets established an NKVD filtration camp on the former field III, where they detained the compromised Home Army and Peasant Battalions soldiers. After several weeks of internment at Majdanek, most of them were transported deep into the Soviet Union. In November 1944, the State Museum at Majdanek began its activity. The contemporary landscape of the Museum does not cover the entire area of the former KL Lublin and is the result of several post-war concepts for its development. According to the first plan from 1948, the prisoner field III was to serve as a place of remembrance of nations, while the damaged barracks in the other fields were demolished. Fields I, II, IV and part of V were reforested, creating the Forest of Remembrance. The 1961 land development plan involved the removal of trees that adversely affected the historical landscape. In their place, the outlines of the barracks were recreated. In 1976, construction of a municipal cemetery began on the farmland adjacent to the Museum on the eastern side.