Within this year’s All Soul’s Day at Majdanek, on November 24, 1 p.m. an online meeting devoted to Matylda “Mata” Woliniewska will take place at the Museum’s Facebook site. The host, Anna Wójcik, will talk about Woloniewska, a former prisoner of Majdanek, KL Buchenwald, and KL Ravensbrück, with Fr. Jacek Nowak – Mata’s cousin and her close friend.

Jules Schelvis (1921–2016) not only wrote down his memoirs describing his fate during World War II, but as the only Sobibór survivor, he also created a monograph concentrating on the history of SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. The Polish version of Schelvis’ work will soon be released.

On October 16, 2021 the first edition of an educational session for teachers entitled “Historia Magistra Vitae est? A Participatory Visit at the State Museum at Majdanek – the Experience of Teachers and Educators.

On October 12, 2021, a group of students from the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, and Poland participated in a one-day study visit to the State Museum at Majdanek. Their visit was organised as a part of “New Ways of Remembering Together” – an international project coordinated by the Auschwitz Jewish Centre and the Kreutzberger Initiative gegen Antisemitismus.

An armed revolt of prisoners under the leadership of Alexander Pechersky and Lejba Felhendler broke out in the German extermination camp in Sobibór on October 14, 1943.

The ordinary of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, major archbishop of Kiev Sviatoslav Shevchuk; Ukraine's minister of foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba; the ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andrii Deshchytsia; several delegations of the local-government authorities from Ukraine and Poland, representatives of the diplomatic corpse and clergy, altogether paid homage to the victims of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek.

The jury of the 41st Museum Event of the Year Sybilla competition 2020 granted the honourable mention to the State Museum at Majdanek for the permanent exhibition “SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. German death camp 1942–1943.”

We inform that despite the state of emergency declared within the Lublin voivodship, particularly near the Polish-Belarusian border, the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór remains open to visitors.

On the 78th anniversary of "Aktion Erntefest," we paid homage to the 18.000 Jewish prisoners of Majdanek and labour camps in Lublin, who were murdered in November 1943. Near the obelisk commemorating those who had lost their lives during that mass execution we laid flowers and remembrance stones.

On November 3, 1943, the German SS and police functionaries at Majdanek murdered over 18.000 prisoners of KL Lublin and labour camps in Lublin. The operation codenamed “Erntefest” (Harvest Festival) was the largest mass execution in the history of all the German Nazi concentration camps.

Holy mass in remembrance of the victims, a lecture, and paying homage at the Mausoleum – on September 19,
the Sunday of Remembrance is organised.

The exhibition devoted to Jerzy Kwiatkowski can be explored in the Visitor Service Centre of the State Museum at Majdanek.

Between August 31 and September 3, 2021, the international seminar entitled “From memory of places to the pedagogy of remembrance” took place in the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór.

On September 11, the State Museum at Majdanek organises a free guided tour for Poles. The participants will learn about the history of the German Nazi concentration camp Lublin.

There is still a need to reflect upon the purpose and methods of educational processes organised in memorial sites of World War II. To create a forum for international dialogue on this matter a seminar “From memory of places to the pedagogy of remembrance“ for educational project leaders that starts today in the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór.

We invite you to read the latest issue of Varia magazine. In this issue: a historical building that has gained a new function in the educational activity of the museum, a presentation of unique exhibits from our collections, a story of a daring escape from the camp, an article about the Soviet NKVD filter camp at Majdanek, a story about a Warsaw actress and singer imprisoned in the camp.

On August 1, 2021, Zdzisław Badio passed away. He was a great friend of the State Museum at Majdanek, involved in educating young generations on the tragedy of World War II, former prisoner of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. We will miss him.

On July 22, the 77th anniversary of the liquidation of KL Lublin was marked. In the camp, founded by Germans in the outskirts of Lublin in the autumn of 1941, almost 80,000 people perished. They were commemorated by laying down flowers at the Mausoleum. In the ceremony, held by the State Museum at Majdanek, took part the former prisoners of the camp, representatives of local authorities and Lublin institutions.

22 July marks the 77th anniversary of the liquidation of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. About 150,000 prisoners of various nationalities went through the camp in 1941–1944. 80,000 of them lost their lives.

Not only in Polish and English – exhibition catalogue “SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. German Nazi Death Camp in Sobibór 1942–1943” is now available in our bookstore also in German, Hebrew, Dutch, Slovak, and Russian. For the first time in the history of the State Museum at Majdanek we publish our exhibition catalogue in seven language versions.

Undoubtedly, opening to visitors the men’s and women’s bathhouse, along with the building of gas chambers, following their conservation and renovation, was our most important undertaking of the first half of 2021. The newest issue of “Varia” magazine is devoted to them. Enjoy your reading!

The transmission of the actual museum space into the online domain and employment of digital technologies in reaching out to the recipients are dominant topics within the contemporary museum discourse. Both issues were analysed and discussed during the training course addressed to the museum employees.

Seminars, study stays, and workshops – activities for various groups of recipients will be held in the education facility of the Museum and Memorial in Bełżec that has just been presented to the public and media representatives.

The first meeting from the “Witnesses of History” will take place in the Visitor Service Center of the State Museum at Majdanek on June 27. Then the participants will take part in a guided tour through the grounds of the former German concentration camp.