JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. KONZENTRATIONSLAGER MAJDANEK, CHAPTER II. LUBLIN/POLAND

Wednesday, Cheshvan 29, 5776. November 11, 2015.

Shalom! World.

The Mausoleum

Remains and bones of the murdered were found in many places on the grounds following the liquidation of the camp. In May 1947, volunteers raised a kurhan mound from the human remains. Young people, soldiers, factory workers and social organizations joined in, and Stefan Wyszynski, bishop of Lublin at the time, urged the faithful to help. Over the course of several months, 1,300 cubic meters of earth mixed with remains were collected. The mound functioned as commemoration of the victims of the camp until the end of the 1960s. At that time, the remains were deposited below the dome of the newly constructed Mausoleum, where they rest to this day. 

The Monument to Struggle and Martyrdom

In response to requests from former prisioners, who regarded the existing forms of commemoration too modest, an "open competition for a monument honoring the victims of the death camp at Majdanek" was announced in 1967. It evoked great interest among artists from all over Poland. The submission by Wiktor Tolkin and Janusz Dembek was chosen for erection. The building of the monument took two years and involved about 200 people. More than a hundred thousand people attended its unveiling, and Polish Prime Minister Jósef Cyrankiewicz represented the national authorities. 

The Monument of Struggle and Martyrdom is a large-scale monumental composition composedof three elements with multiple symbolic meanings. The Monument-Gate, alluding to the Gates of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy, leads visitors into the world of the camp. The Road of Homage and Remembrance leads away from the Gate. Its initial segment takes the form of a deep ravine, and at its opposite end stands the Mausoleum, in the form of a dome supported by three columns. "our fate is a warning to you", a quatation from Franciszek Fenikowski's poem Requim, iscarved on the frieze.

"When we and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are no more, when free people live on the soil of Poland, Europe, and the world, noble people, people bonded in the brotherhood of man - may this moment for alltime bear witness to the past and constitute a symbol of eternal memory, eternal glory, and homage to those who suffered martyrs' deaths at the hands of nazi genocide perpetrators on the ground of Majdanek camp." Excerpt of the act of dedication of the Monument to Struggle and Martydom, as read by Danuta Brzosko-Medryk, Majdanek prisioner.

The Historical Lanscape of Majdanek

A structure of exceptional historical value is the bunker containing the gas chambers. They are among the few facilities of their type in existence in Europe. They are also unique because they were fitted for extermination with the use of either Zyklon B or carbon monoxide. 

Another eloquent symbol of nazi crime is the so-called new crematorium, situated directly adjacent to prisioners field V. In the building, which originally had 12 rooms, remaining equipment includes the crematorium furnaces and the autopsy table used for plundering the corpses. On the grounds of the Museum, in what is  known as middle field I (the space between prisioner fields), there also stands the barracks where a crematorium was located earlier. 

Beyond prisioner field V, visitors to Majdanek will also catch sight of further evidence of nazi extermination policies. More than 18.000 Jewish prisioners from Majdanek and labor camps in Lublin were shot in ditches specially dug there on November 3, 1943, in the operation code-named Erntefest (Harvest Festival). This event was the last chapter of Aktion Reinhardt, which aimed at the extermination of the Jews in the General Government. 

Shalom! Aleichem.

Suporte cultural:  Jacob Jr. B.A.C.E., avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Cz .