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

A doctor of law, businessman from Warsaw, and banker, as Polish political prisoner was deported to KL Lublin in January 1943. Although the exhibition’s title refers to the position that Kwiatkowski held in the camp, it also describes his family and childhood, military career, and his post-war emigration. Moreover, “The Gardener of Field III” describes the origin of one of the most important sources describing the history of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. Jerzy Kwiatkowski wrote down his testimony just after his liberation in 1945. He entitled the typescript “485 Days at Majdanek.”

The exhibition encompasses the original documents and photographs from the collections of the State Museum at Majdanek and the Hoover Institution Library and Archives in the U.S. They are complemented with Jerzy Kwiatkowski’s personal belongings found in his last apartment in New York. These items were donated to the State Museum at Majdanek by Erich Schiele. Among them, there is an oil portrait of Jerzy Kwiatkowski, painted by Eduard Dussk in 1916.

The third edition of “485 Days at Majdanek” was published in 2018, as a result of cooperation between the State Museum at Majdanek and the Hoover Institution. The book is based on the original typescript written by Kwiatkowski in 1945. It is one of the most important and popular accounts devoted to the history of the German Nazi concentration camp in Lublin.

“485 Days at Majdanek” can be purchased in the museum’s bookstore, both in the English and Polish version.