This summer the 75th anniversary of the displacement of the Polish families from the Zamość Region to the German concentration camp at Majdanek is marked. The exhibition is devoted to the tragic fates of the region inhabitants who were detained in KL Lublin in June and July 1943.

The exhibition consists of archival photographs and historical documents, including those belonging to private collections of the former Majdanek prisoners. They are supplemented with photographs of items related to their stay in the camp and fragments of their memoirs.

W lecie 2018 r. przypada 75. rocznica wysiedlenia polskich rodzin z Zamojszczyzny do niemieckiego obozu koncentracyjnego na Majdanku. Przygotowana z tej okazji wystawa ukazuje tragiczne losy mieszkańców tego regionu osadzonych w KL Lublin w czerwcu i lipcu 1943 r. Na ekspozycję składają się fotografie archiwalne i dokumenty historyczne, z których wiele pochodzi z prywatnych kolekcji rodzin byłych więźniów Majdanka. Całość dopełniają zdjęcia przedmiotów związanych z pobytem mieszkańców Zamojszczyzny w obozie oraz fragmenty ich wspomnień.

In the assumptions of the authorities of the Third Reich, the Zamość region, located in the south-eastern part of the Lublin province, was to be the first German settlement district in the east – a “Germanic defensive wall” for further expansion. This area, considered to be indigenously German, was on the route of prospective communication arteries designed to connect the Reich with the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.

The experimental phase of the so-called Master Plan for the East (Generalplan Ost) began in 1941. This long‑term program of settlement and colonization of territories of Central and Eastern Europe, designed to cover the area from Transylvania to the Baltic countries, aimed at gaining more “living space” for the Germans. This meant massive deportations and resettlements of millions of people. It is estimated that in the years 1941–1943 a total of nearly 100,000 people from the Zamość region were subjected to displacement actions.

The first stage of the operation was carried out in November 1941, another one from November 1942 to March 1943. After examinations carried out in the resettlement camp in Zamość, the displaced persons were deported either to KL Auschwitz or to the Reich for forced labour. The children who fulfilled Nazi racial criteria were taken away from their parents and chosen to undergo Germanisation, while those deemed “racially worthless” were sent to other parts of the General Government.

The last stage of displacements was carried out from June 24 to August 1943. As a result, 9,000 women, men and children from the pre-war counties of Zamość, Biłgoraj and Tomaszów were deported into KL Lublin.

Concept and script: Krzysztof Banach, Marta Grudzińska, Anna Wójcik
Editing and proofreading: Dorota Niedziałkowska
Translation: Małgorzata Warmińska, Lech Remiszewski
Graphic design: Izabela Tomasiewicz
Language versions: Polish, English
Venue: Visitors Service Centre
Open: 28.04.2018 – 27.09.2018