On the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the very first transport of Jews from the Podzamcze ghetto in Lublin to the death camp in Bełżec, which initiated the mass extermination programme implemented by the Third Reich under the codename “Einsatz Reinhardt,” we met in the Collegium Iuridicum of the Catholic University of Lublin to restore the memory of those events in the form of a panel discussion.

The first transports of Jewish deportees from the Lublin and Lwów ghettos arrived at the Bełżec extermination camp in Bełżec 80 years ago. These events marked the beginning of operation “Reinhardt.” Within its course the Germans murdered approx. 2,000,000 Jews between the March 1942 and November 1943. We commemorated all the victims of that mass extermination programme during a ceremony held in the Museum and Memorial in Bełżec on March 15.

On night of 16 to 17 March, 1942, the functionaries of the Sicherheitspolizei [German security police] commanded by Hermann Worthoff entered the Podzamcze ghetto in Lublin. From there, they would send 1,000 Jews every following day, cramped inside the freight cars they were sent to the extermination camp in Bełżec.

The panel discussion organised by the State Museum at Majdanek, entitled “Einsatz Reinhardt” in the context of the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Roles and consequences, is going to feature the leading historians specialising in the subject of the Holocaust. The debate is going take place in Collegium Iuridicum of the Catholic University of Lublin, situated at Spokojna 1 Street in Lublin. The event starts at 5 p.m. on March 17.

The Institute of National Remembrance and the State Museum at Majdanek wish to invite everyone for a ceremony held in recognition of the 80th anniversary of the first deportations of Jews to the German extermination camp in Bełżec.

We present the new issue of the “Varia” magazine. The contents include historical outlines, archival photographs, and unique documents pertaining to the mass extermination of Jews in the General Government conducted by the Third Reich in the years 1942-1943 under the codename “Einsatz Reinhardt.”

In the face of Russia's military aggression against sovereign Ukraine and the wave of refugees seeking safety on the territory of Poland, the directorate and employees of the State Museum at Majdanek as well as its branches in Bełżec and Sobibór decided to actively help the people affected by war.

On the night of 16–17 March, 1942, the German police functionaries initiated the deportations from the ghetto in Lublin. Around 1,000 Jews, entirely oblivious of their fate, were herded into freight cars and sent to the death camp in Bełżec every day. The annihilation of Lublin’s Jewish community was the first step of the enormous extermination programme codenamed “Einsatz Reinhardt.”

CALL FOR PAPERS || We invite historians, scholars, regionalist researches, and students to participate in the academic conference “The infrastructure of operation ‘Reinhardt.’ Sites, sources, research postulates” which will be held in Lublin on May 23-25, 2022.

42 photographs taken at different times of a day and year comprise the newest publication of the State Museum at Majdanek. The photos taken by Krzysztof Stanek, an employee of our Department of Communications and Public Relations, included in the presented album show the places and buildings located in the former German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek.

In 2005, the UN General Assembly established January 27th as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This date refers to the day of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp liberation in 1945 and is an opportunity to commemorate Jewish victims who were murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Are you a university student? Do you speak foreign languages? Are you interested in history? The course for a tour guide at the State Museum at Majdanek is your chance to take up a job which is not only easy to combine with studies, but which will also be an opportunity to gain valuable experience and to establish contact with people from all over the world.

On January 11, 2022, the Museum presented a new monograph concerning the history of the German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. The book entitled "The Prisoners of KL Lublin 1941-1944" focuses on the fates and personal experiences of the people that for various reasons were deported to the camp from nearly all territories of the German-occupied Europe.

On January 11, at 5 p.m. we organise a premiere event related to the new book prepared and released by the State Museum at Majdanek. “The Prisoners of KL Lublin 1941-1944” – edited by Tomasz Kranz and Wojciech Lenarczyk – describes the history of the people, who under many pretexts were imprisoned behind the barbed wires of Majdanek by the German occupier.

We invite you to read the latest issue of this year's Varia magazine. It is published in the Polish-English language version.

The State Museum at Majdanek is the first museum of martyrdom in Poland in which historical education is based on the concept of the pedagogy of remembrance. The aim of this didactic model commemorating the victims of Nazism is to encourage students and adults to undertake independent activities in order to acquire knowledge about World War II and the Holocaust.

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 has just been released by the State Museum at Majdanek.

In November 2021, the archival resources of the State Museum at Majdanek were enriched by two secret messages written by Tadeusz Tuz to his family. In 1944 he was imprisoned in the Lublin Castle and then shot at the Majdanek camp.

As part of the custom of giving gifts during December, students from the 5th Maria Skłodowska-Curie High School in Lublin showed an extraordinary initiative. The youth initiated their own action of preparing surprise packages for former prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp. It is their symbolic, intergenerational expression of memory, respect, and gratitude towards people who survived World War II.

Almost two hundred relics, such as prisoners' clothes and shoes, numbers and markings, tools of terror, Judaica, devotional articles, dishes, dolls, drawings, jewellery, and art objects were seen by the participants of this year's "Witnesses of the history" series.

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.

The academic seminar "The Architecture of Crime. The Topography and Infrastructure of the ‘Einsatz Reinhardt’ Camps" has ended The online seminar on November 4-5, 2021, was devoted to the logistics and organisation of the genocidal operation in the course of which the Germans established the extermination camps in Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.

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.