WITHIN THE CIrCLE oF THE GroDZKA GATE
THEATrE oF MEMorY BY THE NN THEATrE
GuIDEBooK
The present publication was released on the occasion of the
“Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre receiving the HAC Award for Concord in recognition of its work in the field of Polish-Jewish history commemoration
THEATrE oF MEMorY
BY THE NN THEATrE
Lublin 2019
Tomasz pietrasiewicz
WITHIN THE CIrCLE oF THE GroDZKA GATE
THEATrE oF MEMorY BY THE NN THEATrE
GuIDEBooK
This book is dedicated to
the Jewish boy from Kamionka
Nimrod S. Ariav
Severyn Ashkenazy
IntroductIon
The “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre The “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre is a local gov‑
ernment cultural institution operating in Lublin. Thanks to its location, the Grodzka Gate, leading to the destroyed Jewish Town, the employers of the theatre embarked on a voyage of discovery, salvaging the Memory of this incredible place.
The theatre became similar to an “Ark of Memory” in which old photographs, documents and memories are constantly gathered. In the programme realised by our institution great emphasis is put particularly on the historical and symbolic significance of the Grodzka Gate, a former passageway from the Christian to the Jewish Town, which has continued to serve its function of a meeting point between religions and cultures.
In the surroundings of the Gate, the space left by the former Jewish Quarter, the NN Theatre has and continues to hold many artistic events exploring the memory of the past while mourning the victims of the Holocaust.
The empty space left by the Jewish Town
The great space on one side of the Gate – where the Castle
stands – is the area of the former Jewish Quarter. In 1939,
among the 120,000 citizens of Lublin there were nearly
43,000 Jews. During WWII the Jewish citizens of Lublin were
murdered by the Nazis and the Jewish district destroyed. On commencing our work at the Grodzka Gate in the early 1990s we knew nothing of the history of the Lublin Jews. We were not even aware that the enormous, empty space on the one side of the Gate hides the story of the Jewish Town with its houses, synagogues and streets; we knew nothing of the Gate leading to a non ‑existent Jewish Town. A big part of this ter‑
rain still remains covered with the concrete shell of a parking lot, under which, together with the foundations of the former Jewish buildings, the memory of their inhabitants is concealed.
Memory and Responsibility
It was then – at the very onset of our activity – that we had to face a weighty decision as to what should the meaning of the NN Theatre's accidental location be next to the empty space left by the Jewish Town. A space which came into being only after its former Jewish occupants had been murdered and their district razed to the ground. It seemed to us something deeply immoral to create a cultural institution in a place so unusual and not to refer to it in some special way. In effect, our pres‑
ence in this place, the Grodzka Gate, has come to mean for us a taking on of responsibility for the Memory of the now non ‑existent Jewish Town of Lublin and the terrible fact of its annihilation. In his statements, Czesław Miłosz repeatedly emphasised that what is left after the Shoah is the “sullied, blood ‑stained, desecrated” soil. Commenting on the thoughts of Miłosz, Jan Błoński in his famous essay entitled The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto writes:
(…) blood has remained on the walls, the soil soaked up
blood, whether we want it or not. Our memory and our
very selves are also soaked up with this blood. So we must cleanse ourselves, and this means we must see ourselves in the light of truth. Without such an insight, our home, our soil, we ourselves, will remain tainted. This is […] the message of our poet. [This blood] calls for remembrance, prayer, and justice. (…) That collective memory which finds its purest voice in poetry and literature cannot forget this bloody and hideous defilement. It cannot pretend that it never occurred.
(…) The desecration of Polish soil occurred and we have not yet discharged our duty of seeking expiation. In this graveyard, the only way to achieve this is to face up to our duty of viewing our past truthfully.
[The translation comes from the book The Grodzka Gate – Circles of Mem- ory by Tomasz Pietrasiewicz, published by the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre”
Centre (Ed. Aleksandra Zińczuk, Lublin, 2008).]
Empathy and Memory
In the Gate, in the activities carried out here, a symbolical Polish ‑Jewish meeting space is created – a ground for discuss‑
ing the past and making the future. Jews who come here often
ask us: “Why do you do this? After all, you are not Jewish. You
are Poles and the Jewish town is not your history”. Poles often
ask: “Why do you do this? After all, you are Poles and the
Jewish town is not our history. Or maybe you are Jewish?” We
explain patiently that this, in fact, is our common, Polish ‑Jewish
history. To remember the murdered Jews you do not have to be
Jewish. To remember the murdered Poles you do not have to
be Polish. The world we live in needs more Gates like ours. It
is thanks to places like these that – in keeping with the Jewish
idea of Tikkun olam (“healing the world”) – we indeed make
it better. The difficult process of disclosing the memory of the
Jewish Town of Lublin demonstrates how tightly the life of each community is bound with the process of remembering the past.
It is easy to beautify our own history and thus perceive it from
one point of view. However, mythologizing the past without
a critical insight can become a treacherous tool generating
future conflicts. This is why the contemporary world – so diverse
and so deeply divided – we have to show more empathy,
compassion and the ability to understand others. In Lublin,
such an understanding especially embraces the memory of its Jewish inhabitants murdered during the Holocaust.
“Remember us”
In their accounts, many historical witnesses recall that victims led to death would often shout: “Remember us!” The perpe‑
trators of the Holocaust wanted to throw the mass murdered Jews into the chasms of oblivion, to erase every single trace of their existence and thus render them entirely anonymous (NN).
That is why most victims of the Holocaust are faceless to this very day and their names still remain unknown. Our work is to try and reconstruct their fates (saving them from oblivion) and retrieve the victims’ names. It is exactly the “NNs” who are of greatest importance to us, because they often have no one to keep them in mind.
Theatre of Memory at the NN Theatre
The very name of the institution: “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre”
Centre, points to its theatrical origins. Indeed, it all takes its beginning in the NN Theatre, which started its activity on the premises of the Grodzka Gate in 1992. It very quickly turned out, however, that the language of the theatre confronted with the dramatic story of the Gate and its surroundings often made it seem too commonplace, overwhelmed as it was by history. This situation forced us to seek a new form of expres‑
sion – both for the institution in the making (the “Grodzka
Gate – NN Theatre” Centre) as well as for the cultural and
artistic performances realised here. Because of our relationship
with the theatre, we began to think of the area of the Grodzka
Gate as a “theatre stage”. On the way to finding a new means
of expression, memory was our most significant point of refer‑
ence. It gave rise to the Theatre of Memory at the NN Theatre.
Theatralisation of space within the Grodzka Gate
This peculiar process of the “theatralisation” of the space at our disposal entailed the introduction of various objects bearing traits of theatrical scenography. In this manner, a specific type of “Theatre of Memory” was given life in the Grodzka Gate with its own configuration of symbols, metaphors and props.
As a consequence, several scenographic exhibitions were designed, giving shape to the “Theatre of Memory”: Portrait of the Place (1999), Memory of the Shoah (2008), Lights in the Darkness – Righteous Among the Nations (2008), Lublin.
Memory of the Place (2010), Lublin. 43 Thousand (2015).
Every new exhibition was rooted in its predecessor. More and more space inside the Gate was annexed for the needs of the exhibition. Some of these exhibitions: Memory of the Shoah (2008), Lights in the Darkness – Righteous Among the Nations (2008), can be viewed as art installations.
The first exhibition in the Gate to tell the story of the Jewish Town – already in the form of the “Theatre of Memory” – was Portrait of the Place (1999). It was precisely then that the origi‑
nal object in terms of theatrical scenography was placed here, the so ‑called “Memory Machine”. Until today it remains one of the fundamental elements of the existing exhibition. “Memory Machine” was designed as an integral part of the scenography of the place, “entwining” every corridor and room of the Gate, and so binding them into one.
The next exhibition – Memory of the Shoah (2008) com‑
memorated the annihilation of the Jewish Town of Lublin. It
began where the story of the pre ‑war Jewish Town ended – through creating a detailed model of the old district. These two parts of the exhibition – one telling the story of the life in the Jewish Quarter and the other referring to its destruction – are separated with a door frame bearing the mark of an empty mezuzah space.
The exhibition Lights in the Darkness – Righteous Among the Nations (2008) was created in the whitewashed interiors of the attic which contrast with the adjoining black space of the exhibition on the Holocaust. The Righteous, saving Jews at the risk of their own lives, served to counteract the otherwise ever ‑present evil. What such individuals did is visualised as a ray of light in the depths of a terrible darkness – hence the name of this exposition.
The exhibition Lublin. Memory of the Place (2010) was designed as an interior of an archive. It was meant to empha‑
sise the fact that the Gate has become the “Ark of Memory”
where photographs, documents and memories are constantly being salvaged. A further elaboration on this exhibition is a project called Lublin. 43 Thousand (2015). It manifests itself in the space of the exhibition with thousands of files, each one assigned to a specific inhabitant of the Jewish Town.
The Surroundings of the Grodzka Gate –
“Mysteries of Memory”
The vast empty space left by the Jewish Town just outside the Grodzka Gate is filled with rich symbolism connected with Memory and the Shoah. It has become the space in which the NN Theatre realised many para ‑theatrical performances – Mysteries of Memory – the nature of which refers to the medi‑
eval genre of 'mystery plays'. The characteristic trait of these
plays was for the witnesses of the events staged to take active part in the performance of the particular mystery. Myster‑
ies of Memory are meant to create an emotional connection between their participants and the dramatic events of the past, keeping the memory of the murdered inhabitants of the Jewish Town alive. The first two Mysteries of Memory were performed in the year 2000. One Land – Two Temples was organised in the space surrounding the Grodzka Gate and The Day of Five Prayers was held on the premises of the former concentration camp at Majdanek. In later years, other Mysteries of Memory were staged in the urban space surrounding the Gate: Poem of the Place (2002, 2004), Mystery of Light and Darkness (every year since 2002), Memory of the Righteous – Memory of Light (2008).
Other “Mysteries of Memory”
The Mystery of Memory Letters to the Ghetto took place in 2001, its dramaturgy based on the act of writing letters to the inhabitants of the former Jewish Town and sending them to their long ‑gone addresses. In this case, the Mystery of Memory was no longer thought of as a para ‑theatrical performance with the city space as its “stage”. The written word is an artistic means used also in the Mysteries of Memory called Letters to Henio which are held annually since 2005, as well as in the so ‑called Narratives (Dopisane Losy). The participants of these mysteries rooted in the written word, in which the very act of writing is a symbolic undertaking, become also their creators. In effect, the mysteries gain an additional educational dimension.
Mysteries of Memory relating to the spoken word (oral
history) are yet another form of these mysteries, two of which
were held on the premises of the Centre – in the Grodzka Gate.
One of them, Salvaged Stories, took place in 2012 and the other, Salvaged Stories – Witnesses, in 2013.
What is more, two Mysteries of Memory in the form of literary ‑musical performances were also held in the Gate:
Lublin. Memory of the Holocaust (oratorio) and Tales from the Night (cantata).
In 2015 we began the realisation of a particularly unique
Mystery of Memory called Lublin. 43 Thousand. This mystery
is not bound by any spatial or temporal framework, but rather
enacted through the spectator’s very own exploration of the
archives in search of documents referring to the murdered
inhabitants of the Jewish Town. All of the activities included in
this process of inquiry serve as a symbolic act of saving the
memory of those who perished in the Holocaust.
Part 1
In the Grodzka Gate
Exhibition
Lublin. 43 thousand
Operation Reinhard – In the Circles of the Shoah
Mysteries of Memory
1. exhIbItIon
In the Grodzka Gate
Three Planes of the Grodzka Gate Exhibition The space of the exhibition at the Grodzka Gate has been divided into three parts. The first one tells the story of the Jewish Town before 1939. Among other things, it contains informa‑
tion on both people and houses. The second part, designed as an art installation, commemorates the citizens of the Jewish Quarter murdered in the Holocaust, while the third (also in the form of an art installation) tells the story of the Righteous sav‑
ing Jews in the time of the Shoah. Each of these sections has its own character and is filled with different objects of specific scenography.
1. Lublin. Memory of the Place – the story of the Jewish Town before World War II
The exhibition Lublin. Memory of the Place (2010) was designed as an interior of an archive. It was meant to empha‑
sise the fact that the Gate has become a place where – similar to the “Ark of Memory” – old photographs, documents and memories are constantly being salvaged for future genera‑
tions. An important scenographic element of the exhibition
takes the form of metal shelves with thousands of binders. It is this precise interior design which renders the space within the Gate theatrical, ultimately sculpting it into the form of an archive. In the binders placed on the filing cabinets visitors can find information on particular houses, streets and people. The integral elements of this area are the computer stands allowing one to browse our database (iconography, oral history, texts).
As a consequence, the archive has a very definite pragmatic function, too – and is accessible to anyone who comes here.
“AxIS MUNDI” Of THE LOST JEWISH TOWN
The Axis Mundi is, in fact, simply made up of “road signs” bearing the names of the non ‑existent streets of the Jewish Town of Lublin. The street names are inscribed in Yiddish and Polish on metal plates.
One of them is an original which formally marked Szeroka Street and dates back to the Russian Parti‑
tion. “Axis mundi” marks symbolically the “centre
of the world” being placed at the heart of a town
which no longer exists. The symbolism is further
emphasised by the fact that the Axis is suspended over the ground rather than standing on it.
THE STRIPE MADE UP Of PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS Of PEOPLE
from 2013, the entire interior space of the Gate has been wrapped by a single stripe consisting of original photographs which show the inhabitants of the Jewish Town. They are pic‑
tures developed from glass negatives recovered during reno‑
vation work in one of the former tenement houses in the Old Town of Lublin. Nearly 2,700 photographs belong to this collection. They were most probably taken by a single Jewish photographer who was active in Lublin between 1914–1939.
“MEMORY MACHINE”
The device is made of black boxes, in the shape of narrow cuboids hanging on the walls. Speakers and spy holes are installed within them thanks to which, similar to the Kaiser‑
panorama, visitors can watch photographs and listen to audio recordings. The “Machine” is switched on the moment visitors enter the Gate's space, turning it simultaneously into a pecu‑
liarly theatrical stage. The “Memory Machine” being activated
gives life to the Gate, as if the walls themselves were telling their own story with the images and “music” of the now non ‑existent Jewish Town. We can hear the clatter of wooden cab wheels on cobblestones, the noises of the market and the voices of Jewish merchants, the sounds of children at play and the melody of Jewish songs. Complimenting this are the hundreds of pictures of the old city projected through the various spy holes.
I AM THE NN
At the very starting point of the exhibition we are told the story of
a very specific room in the Grodzka Gate – a room where a flat
was originally situated during the war. This is why we are able
to observe its plan accurately drawn on the floor and carefully
marked with the position of particular pieces of furniture. It is
here that one “small story” took place, a story with which we
always begin the tale of the Jewish Town. – ‘I am the NN’ – is
how the woman who tells the story introduces herself. During
the war – being then just a small girl – she was found in the
streets by a Polish woman. The woman decided to take care of
her and brought her to the flat in the Grodzka Gate. The girl's
parents might have been Jewish – possibly murdered – for
she could not remember either her mother or father and knew
nothing of them. for many years – and almost every night – she
experienced the repeated dream of a black curtain. The woman knows her parents are concealed behind it, but whenever she approaches the curtain and tries to uncover them, the dream ends. The story has been turned into a mural on one of the walls of the room which covers the area of the former flat.
THE GREAT BOOK
The wall with the mural is like a huge “book page” we can actually “turn”. The plan of the Jewish Town is placed at its back, and the next “leaf” bears a huge aerial view of the Quarter.
This is meant to suggest that entering the space of the exhibition signifies the simultaneous “entering” of the interior of a book which is about to disclose its contents. It is a Memorial (Yizkor) Book about life in the Jewish Town.
“MEMORY RADIO”
“Memory Radio” is a “sound installation”, enabling visitors to lis‑
ten to the oral recordings of the recollections of the city's inhab‑
itants. The “Memory Radio” objective is to demonstrate how important the memories of Lublin citizens are for the archives created in the Centre. Each of the orally transmitted stories is placed in one specific little box with an inbuilt loudspeaker inside. When the “Memory Radio” is activated, the visitors can hear the stories of the town told by its own inhabitants. We can choose which tale to listen to from the “choir” of voices.
THE ARCHIvE – SHELvES WITH fOLDERS AND BINDERS
The dominant elements of the scenography of the exhibition
are the metal shelves with thousands of folders and binders. It
is these very tools that render the spaces of the Gate theatri‑
cal and shape it into the form of an Archive. The area of the archive has been created in two stages: in 2010, as part of the project Lublin. Memory of the Place depicting the Jewish Town with stories of the houses situated there, each build‑
ing was assigned one separate binder. In 2015, as part of the project Lublin. 43 Thousand – each story conveying the fates of the inhabitants of the Jewish Town was assigned one separate folder. As a consequence, in the binders and folders placed on the filing cabinets visitors can find information on particular houses, streets and people. The integral elements of this area are the computer stands allowing one to browse our database (iconography, oral history, texts). The archive, designed as a component of the theatrical scenography, has a very definite pragmatic function, too – it is accessible to any‑
one working here, as well as each and every visitor desiring to find information on the history of the Jewish Town.
THE MODEL Of THE NON ‑ExISTING JEWISH TOWN
In 1998 “The Model of the Non ‑existing Jewish Town” was
built to a scale of 1:250. It was designed as a demonstration of
the actual physical appearance of the Jewish Quarter of Lublin
in 1939. There are over 800 objects on the model, 300 of which had been wiped from the cityscape. Thanks to the documentation collected in the Centre, the former plan of the streets was reconstructed, reminding us of the charac‑
teristic land development of this area. Part of the exhibition Lublin. Portrait of the Place –
telling the story of the Jewish Town before its annihilation – ends with this model fully displayed.
PHOTO ALBUM – HENIO ŻYTOMIRSKI
It is here also that a photo album is exhibited containing the photographs of a little Jewish boy, Henio Żytomirski, born in Lublin in 1933. He was last photographed in May 1939. That year, in September, Henio was supposed to start school. He was killed at Majdanek in 1942. Henio’s history ends the story of life in the Jewish Town and simultaneously allows visitors into the symbolic space dedicated to the memory of the murdered Jewish inhabitants of Lublin.
2. “Lublin. Memory of the Place – Memory of the Shoah”
The exhibition and installation called Memory of the Shoah
commemorates the Annihilation of the Jewish Town of Lublin.
It has its beginning where the story of the pre ‑war Jewish Town ends.
DOOR fRAME WITH AN EMPTY MEZUZAH SPACE
The symbolic “space of memory” referring to the Holocaust can be entered through a doorless frame. The wooden door frame, marked with an empty space left by a mezuzah, was recovered during renovation work in one of the former Jewish tenement houses situated in the vicinity of the Grodzka Gate.
It forms a symbolic border between the two spaces of the Gate – one, telling the story of life in the Jewish Town, and the other – of its death.
TWO PHOTOGRAPHS
On the one side of the door frame – in the space relating the story of life in the Jewish Town – an enlarged print of Henio’s last known photograph (taken in the street in May 1939) has been placed. On the other side of the wooden frame, in the section of the exhibition narrating the Holocaust, hangs the present ‑day image of the very same spot in Lublin – without Henio.
ROOM 1 – THE LIST Of THE MURDERED INHABITANTS Of THE GHETTO
In the pitch black of a windowless room, a stand with a screen
on top is placed. It displays the pieces of paper with the
names of Jews listed by the German authorities in the Majdan
Tatarski ghetto on the night of the 19
thand 20
thof April 1942 –
names of people who would be murdered soon after. The
list is continually read out via a recording and the lectern is positioned in the direction where the ghetto in Majdan Tatarski was situated.
THE WALL WITH THE IMAGES Of THE GHETTO
In the very same room, spy holes are embedded into a black wall. Through the holes visitors can see coloured pictures of the Jewish Town in Lublin taken in 1940 by a German soldier.
ROOM 2 – THE DEAD fOREST
The Dead forest (dry tree trunks) is given shape in a dark‑
ened room. Walking around it, you have to make your way between the dead trunks of trees. The setting refers to the leg‑
end of the Jews’ arrival in Poland. In order to rest after a long journey, travellers stopped in a forest not far from the city.
There, on tree leaves, they saw Hebrew inscriptions saying
Po -Lin: “here you shall stay”.
In the context of the Shoah, which took place here, the significance of these words becomes dramatically affec‑
tive. The tree trunks symbol‑
ise a dead forest. Standing among them visitors can hear a poem recited in Yiddish –
“Dead Men Don't Praise God”
by Jacob Glatstein, in which Lublin was used as a sym‑
bol of the Holocaust itself.
The author of the poem was
born in Lublin at Krawiecka Street. After the tragedy of the Holocaust, Glatstein decided to write exclusively in Yiddish – the language of his murdered people. The poem is read out by the last Lublin Jew to whom Yiddish is the native language, the language of the poet’s childhood. The text of the poem has been placed on one of the walls of the room in Yiddish and on another in Polish.
“ORPHANAGE” – SEvEN STORIES1
After the destruction of the Jewish Town in Lublin its murdered inhabitants quickly became the “expatriates” of our memory.
1 The seven stories from the “Orphanage” collection (“Menorah of Memory”) were used for the creation of a particular kind of libretto which forms part of a theatre performance entitled Tales from the Night (2015). It was produced in a literary ‑musical form similar to a cantata. The performance includes the staging of Jacob Glatstein's poem: “Lublin, My Holy City”. Tales from the Night are performed both on the premises of the Centre, as well as in the vicinity of the Grodzka Gate during outdoor events.
The histories of their lives and deaths, abandoned by every‑
one, have been “homeless” for decades until we started to gather the “orphaned and forsaken” stories. By saving them, we have opened an “Orphanage” for them in the Gate. We have chosen seven stories from our archive which can be read in this section of the exhibition. Their number refers to the seven candles burning in the menorah. Using this symbolism we can refer to it as the “Menorah of Memory”. The first story which found its way here concerns a Jewish boy from Kamionka; all seven stories are presented as follows:
THE BOY fROM KAMIONKA vILLAGE
The story of a little Jewish boy without a name was told many years ago by an elderly teacher to her pupils. During the occu‑
pation she worked in Kamionka, a small town near Lublin. One day, together with some other residents, she saw a German sol‑
dier escorting a boy to a place of an execution. They watched the child’s hair turn grey instantly. The teacher is no longer alive.
The last people who heard the story were her students.
THE PILLOW
An elderly lady told the story of a pillow left for safekeeping to a Polish family by a Jewish neighbour. She was a child during the German occupation. She remembers the day when a neighbour and his family were leaving their apartment. They were heading for a meeting place designated by the Germans.
That was when the man brought them a pillow with the request to store it until their return. The pillow is blue and very big. No one has ever tried to sleep on it. The lady does not believe that someone will come to collect it. She remembers that the neighbour’s name was Szwarc and he always wore a long black overcoat.
THE BOOK Of GOSPELS
This story happened in the winter of 1941 in a tenement house at Złota Street, in Lublin’s Old Town. All of its Jewish residents were ordered by the Germans to leave their apartments. They had to report with their families in a designated area. One of them, leaving his apartment, called out to a Polish teenage boy standing nearby. He gave him a small book with the four Gospels, telling him in a sad voice that it had been the follow‑
ers of Jesus Christ that were soon to kill him and his family. The
story was passed on to us along with the book by an older
gentleman who had been that young boy. The story goes on,
though. As the book was being flipped through, a holy picture
fell out of it. It commemorated the first mass celebrated in 1936
by a priest whose name was written on its reverse. We were
able to find out about his fate – he had been killed during the
war for hiding Jews.
BIEDNY ŚWIAT (MISERABLE WORLD)
The story about a Jew hiding during the war was told by a man who heard it from his father. He was one year old when all this happened. It was autumn. His father found a cave where a Jew was hiding. He began helping him. for many months the stranger would come to their home, where he was sewing clothes and repairing shoes. He asked to be called Biedny Świat (Miserable World). Then someone discovered his hiding place and he had to flee. He was not heard from again. The little boy grew up, got married and went to another village located on the other side of Lublin. There he learned that dur‑
ing the war, one of the families had been hiding a Jew who was called Biedny Świat. He did not survive the war – he had been shot by the Germans near the village.
PAN NOC (MR. NIGHT)
Pan Noc has been wearing black since I knew him. He has a serene look on his face and wise blue eyes. Pan Noc is a Jew who survived the Holocaust. He was a small child back then.
for two years, together with his parents and brother, he hid in a specially dug basement. At that time he came out of their hideout only once. It was at night and the moon was shining.
He thought that there was no more day in this world and only the night remained.
BUTTERfLIES
Shortly after the war, a young girl visited the Majdanek camp.
She came into the barrack where Jewish children had spent the
last night of their lives. On its walls she saw butterflies drawn
with their own fingernails or pieces of chalk. She could not understand why the children who had been sentenced to death and deprived of everything – their parents, sense of security, home, school – had drawn butterflies. The barrack no longer exists. The memory of the girl who saw the butterflies there is the only one we know. Was it true? We will never know.
ELŻUNIA
This happened already after the war. When the shoes from the camp were being sorted, a scrap of paper was found hidden in a child’s shoe. A short poem and few words about its author were scribbled on the scrap:
Once upon a time there was Elżunia She was to die alone
Her father was at Majdanek Her mother to Oświęcim gone
My name is Elżunia, I am 9 years old and I sing this song to the melody of
“Z popielnika na Wojtusia iskiereczka mruga”
[“A sparkle from an ash box twinkles at Wojtuś” – a popular Polish lullaby].”
The scrap of paper itself has gone missing; only its description has remained. We know nothing more about Elżunia.
[The seven above texts were translated from Polish by Weronika Nowacka]
3. Lights in the Darkness – Righteous Among the Nations
Exhibition Memory of the Righteous – Memory of the Light
(2008) was created in the whitewashed interiors of the attic,
entered by visitors after leaving the section of the installation entitled Memory of the Shoah.
CLAY PLATES WITH THE NAMES Of THE RIGHTEOUS
The stories of the names of the Righteous that have been docu‑
mented by us, have been placed on clay plates and baked in fire during one of the mysteries. They have been written down and fixed in clay in order to emphasise the significance of what the Righteous did.
“THE WALL Of THE RIGHTEOUS”
“The Wall of the Righteous” consists of a filing cabinet, placed in the centre of a whitewashed room, filled with binders assigned to particular people who helped the Lublin Jews. The binders contain information and documents connected with their stories.
Next to the cabinet, a sound installation has been fitted. If you approach it, you can hear the “choir” of interlaced voices of the Righteous sharing their own stories. Every now and then a fragment recognisable by a specific listener comes to the foreground. On the other side of the cabinet, visitors can watch a recording of a documentary on one of the Mysteries of Memory: One Land – Two Temples.
THE LIBRARY
A library is situated in the final section of the exhibition. It
used to belong to a Lublin Jew, who later moved to Tel Aviv
in Israel. He emigrated from Poland in the 1950s taking the
library with him. The collection of books was made up of Polish
volumes (among them Henryk Sienkiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki,
Adam Mickiewicz), but also included volumes written in Hebrew and Yiddish.
When the man died, his family decided to give away all of his books as waste‑
‑paper. They had no value for them anymore. They did not belong to their world. The library, however, was fortu‑
nately rescued and
brought to Lublin. It
is a manifestation of
the fact that for many
Jews living in Poland,
Polish culture was an
element of personal
identity.
2. LubLIn. 43 thousand
As part of the project Lublin. 43 Thousand (2015) we started to work on the individual stories of each inhabitant of the Jewish Town. Before WWII broke out – in 1939 – a general popula‑
tion census was carried out in Lublin. According to its results, 43 thousand Jews were registered in the city at that time. Back
then, no one even imagined that soon the Holocaust would wipe the whole community out of existence. Survivors were very few. This is why it is of such importance to realise that there were 43 thousand faces, names and surnames belonging to this number: men, women and children, born on individual dates and later living in specific houses under many different addresses. Those who organised the Holocaust wanted every trace of memory concerning their victims to be irreversibly erased. It was not enough for them to sentence Jews to death when instead they could be pushed into chasms of oblivion. The mere hint of the Jews’ existence here was to be extinguished and every document bearing proof of it – destroyed.
TWO UTOPIAS
This absolute idea of wiping away the existence of thousands of
people, this dark utopia at the heart of evil itself, is challenged
by our very different utopia, which is similarly absolute. We strive to protect the memory of each and every inhabitant of the former Jewish Town. We want to find the names of these people and reconstruct their fates in as much detail as possible.
It is our absolute act of resistance to the truly horrifying idea of utopia created by the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
43 THOUSAND fOLDERS
Each person has been assigned a file containing all the information about them we could find. In the spaces of the Grodzka Gate we have already placed 43,000 such files, creating a unique form of exhibition – an archive. In the pro‑
cess of close reading memoires, searching through national
archives – we try to find any possible trace of those who lived
here. from time to time, on the basis of archival documents or
recollections, we manage to reconstruct and re ‑tell some of
the stories of the inhabitants of the Jewish Town. Sometimes
what we come across is barely a name, but it sometimes
happens that it comes with a date of birth or an address. In
such cases, the file ascribed to a specific person is tagged
with a name and a surname and the additional information
is placed inside.
Often the memories concerning the inhabitants of the Jewish Town provide only an indefinite trace of someone's presence in Lublin. They have no complete story to convey and thus constitute a barely discernible imprint of a person's existence:
possibly all that remains. for instance, sometimes we find a per‑
son or a situation connected with them mentioned within the recollections of other people. Nothing more. There is no name or surname given. Several specific examples of such situations are given below:
1. Krystyna Modrzewska tells the story of a train with a trans‑
port of Lublin Jews which passed in front of her in the spring of 1942. She saw two faces in the window of one of the freight
cars and this is simply how she remembered them:
A face of a man with a black, or a knocked out eye rushed past. And a silhouette of a little girl, surely held in arms, her coat pale green, hair in golden locks. In the gray, forgotten mass of those fleetingly observed tragic faces of people led to death I remembered (…) only these two: a one ‑eyed man and a child. Years have gone by and I have never forgotten these two faces.
Both the girl and the man recollected by Modrzewska were given folders with the designation “N.N.”.
2. In a letter written by someone called Daniel, sent from Lublin on 29 March 1942, we can read:
M.Z. with M. and all the other children with N. were caught
and sent no one knows where.
Three particular people are mentioned here (“M.Z.”, “M.”,
“N.”), the only information on their fate being this one short sentence. Each of them was given a folder signed with the initials provided in the letter: “M.Z.”, “M.”, “N.”. We know that the author of the letter was named Daniel and that is why he was given a folder assigned with the same name. Inside, the above ‑mentioned letter was inserted.
3. In the spring of 1942, German soldiers murdered children from the Orphanage situated at 11 Grodzka Street. We have no names or any other information referring to the victims. The witness of the event gives a short mention, however, (unveri‑
fied with other documents), of a little girl who survived the execution:
One of the children, a 12‑year ‑old girl Donia, managed to hide and escape. She came back to the ghetto shocked, her clothes tattered, and told the Judenrat (…) in chaotic fragments, what exactly happened.
The folder the girl was given is called “Donia”. It contains only these two sentences.
fOLDERS WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
A separate group of files contains photographs of the inhabit‑
ants of the Jewish Town (faces, full figures). These are the pic‑
tures of particular people meant simply as portraits. In the case of group portraits, images of individual faces are extracted and each of them receives a file, too. Most often we know nothing of the people in the photos, we have no name nor surname.
Their files bear the inscription “N.N.” Many photographs were
taken in the streets and some of the people have been caught in the picture frame accidentally. But we cut out the images of all the people in the photographs – even the poorly visible ones (blurred, face obscure, etc.). We also provide each of them with their own files with the designation “N.N.”.
The project Lublin. 43 Thousand re ‑opened the search for and analysis of documents connected with the life and exter‑
mination of the Jewish Town in Lublin. The enterprise grants the time and space to single out and present each minute reference to every individual person before these tiny hints and details escape us, bereft, as they are, of any story to carry with them.
The sense of this enterprise is well illustrated with the words of one of the survivors, Ida Glickstein, who wrote in her memoirs:
I list names of the murdered, because maybe it is the only gravestone they will get, because there is no one left of their families who would mourn their premature deaths.
MYSTERY Of MEMORY LubLIN. 43 THOuSAND
The project Lublin. 43 Thousand is much more than just search‑
ing through documentary materials and it is not a purely tech‑
nical activity, for in many ways it belongs to a symbolical dimension, consisting of a sort of mystery of Memory embod‑
ied by the exhibition. Our work on the exhibition is a process
carried out openly in front of the public. A process anyone
can participate in. Our research is done in many parts of the
world by hundreds of people. People working with us become
co ‑creators and participants of the mystery. Our work has no
spatial or temporal limit. On the symbolic level, our search is
a process of fighting to save the Memory of the inhabitants of the Jewish Town in Lublin.
One of the forms of participating in a mys‑
tery we offer to those who visit the Gate consists of a short, hand written text on a particular person.
The very act of putting
someone's name down in your own handwriting will suffice. Writing helps individuals open their eyes to the tragedy of the past events. While in the process of writing, we stand face to face with the story of a particular human being. The texts produced may have the form of a letter sent to a chosen person. Examples of such mysteries of Memory are Letters to Henio and Letters to the Ghetto
2.
2 Mystery of Memory Letters to the Ghetto was held for the first time on the 16th of March 2001, to commemorate the anniversary of the beginning of the Lublin Ghetto liquidation. It was a deeply symbolic event pointing to the present ‑day void left by the destroyed Jewish Town. On that day, dozens of letters were sent from the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre to randomly chosen, long ‑gone addresses of the pre ‑war Jewish Town – to their dead inhabitants. Obviously, the letters could never reach the addressees and were returned with official annotations saying: “recipient unknown”, “no such address noted”.
In 2002, Henio Żytomirski became one of the many people to whom let‑
ters are sent annually. Mystery of Memory Letters to Henio is directly related to the history of Henio Żytomirski displayed at the exhibition in the Grodzka Gate. Henio was a little Jewish boy born in Lublin in 1933, murdered in a gas chamber at Majdanek in 1942. During the mystery, Lublin school students are invited to write a letter to Henio, which is subsequently sent to his former, pre ‑war address.
3. operatIon reInhard – In the cIrcLes of the shoah
In the story of World War II, the city of Lublin becomes a most potent symbol. As an element of “Aktion Reinhardt” on the 16
thof March 1942 the first human transport of Jews heading for the death camp in Bełżec was sent from our city
3. Operation Reinhard was meant as nothing less than the biological exter‑
mination of all Jews inhabiting the entire General Government.
3 The wave of atrocities which had its staring point on the 16th of March 1942 in Lublin rapidly spread through the entire area of the General Government (GG) only to conclude yet again in our city where the last phase of Operation Reinhard was enacted. The annihilation of Jews had its tragic close in Lublin when “Aktion Erntefest” (“Harvest festival”) was carried out on the 3rd and 4th of November 1943. It took barely two days for more than 42,000 Jews to be murdered in mass executions on the premises of the concentration camp at Majdanek and the work camps in Trawniki and Poniatowa.
In the course of 20 months, communities of Polish Jews of varied popu‑
lation were being liquidated daily. In effect, approximately 2 million Jews were murdered. The number included mainly Polish Jews, but also the Jewish inhabitants of many other European countries. It is for the needs of Operation Reinhard that three death camps were built: in Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka.
Also Majdanek served the function of a death camp for a period of time.
“Aktion Reinhardt” was designed as an industrial machine for exterminat‑
ing Jews – a system as efficient as a well constructed assembly line. Ghetto – ghetto liquidation – railway platform – transport – death camp. Operation Reinhard was the essence of the Holocaust. Never before had the world known an atrocity of such magnitude. The twenty months of “Aktion Reinhardt”
branded a deep and permanent mark on our culture and civilization, and on the history of this city.
It was concluded in November 1943 with a mass execution of 42,000 Jews, shot on the outskirts of Lublin and in the city itself.
As part of the 75th anniversary of the commencement of Operation Reinhard, the employers of the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre embarked on a 20‑month long creation of a symbolic “Book of the Holocaust”. The Book has the form of an installation made up of information sheets, supplied daily, referring to the extermination of subsequent Jewish communi‑
ties carried out according to plan under the codename “Aktion Reinhardt”. Each of the book’s pages contains the names of the liquidated ghettos or sites of Nazi crimes with correspond‑
ing historical dates. “Book of the Holocaust” is accompanied by the “Archive” in which every described site was assigned a separate file containing information on the history of a spe‑
cific community and a selection of accounts given by the surviv‑
ing witnesses of the events mentioned. Both the “Book” and the
“Archive” have been placed in the Grodzka Gate.
4. MysterIes of MeMory In the Grodzka Gate
One of the para ‑theatrical performances designed as a mys‑
tery of Memory was based on the process of recording mem‑
ories. By using tools normally applied in the “Oral History”
project, we wanted to pay attention to the idea that every recorded memory is a symbolic act passed on by the wit‑
nesses of history to future generations. Two such mysteries of Memory were performed in the Grodzka Gate: “Salvaged Stories. Mystery of Memory” and “Salvaged Stories – Wit- nesses. Mystery of Memory”.
During the mysteries, the accounts of historical witnesses were recorded in the Centre which was simultaneously open to visitors. Effectively, this resulted in the production of a para‑
‑theatrical performance containing elements of documentary
theatre. We thought that the interiors of the “Grodzka Gate –
NN Theatre” Centre would make for the best space for such
an event. After all it serves the function of a symbolic “Ark of
Memory” in which countless old photographs and documents
can be seen and hundreds of hours of recorded stories can
be heard. All this has become the perfect background for
our mysteries.
SALvAGED STORIES
On the 17
thof March 2012 at 6pm the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre held a Mystery of Memory called Salvaged Stories, commemorating the beginning of the ghetto liquida‑
tion in Lublin (16/17 March 1942). Several dozen areas were arranged on the premises of the Grodzka Gate in which Lublin Jews, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, spoke to the young inhabitants of Lublin (high school students) sharing their life stories with them. In a symbolic act, the Memory of the tragic events which took place during the Holocaust was bequeathed to the young generation. Each of the stories told on that day was recorded, put down on paper and edited.
These activities gave birth to a documentary book of interviews entitled Salvaged Stories.
SALvAGED STORIES – WITNESSES
In 2013 a Mystery of Memory called Salvaged Stories –
Witnesses was held. On this particular occasion, the people
who passed on their memories of the Holocaust to the young
inhabitants of Lublin were Polish Lubliners themselves – wit‑
nesses to wartime events. Also their stories were recorded, put down on paper and edited. The Grodzka Gate Centre stayed open for the entire duration of the mystery to every visitor will‑
ing to listen to history being told.
Part 2
In the surroundInGs of the Grodzka Gate. MysterIes of MeMory
One Land – Two Temples Mystery Poem of the Place Mystery
The Mystery of Light and Darkness
Mystery of Memory Lublin. Memory of the Holocaust
1. One Land – TwO TempLes Mystery
The preparation of the Mystery was requested by Archbishop Józef Życiński for the Congress of Christian Culture which was at that time taking place in Lublin.
Mystery of Memory One Land – Two Temples had as its source the fundamental question concerning the possibility of recreating Polish ‑Jewish relationships on the very soil where millions of Jews had been murdered and a query as to what might be its reference point. The hope for forming new rela‑
tions was hidden in the stories of the Jews rescued by Poles during World War II. These very stories demonstrated that in the times of the Holocaust existed people who were ready to show solidarity with the persecuted Jews by giving them a helping hand.
The form of the mystery was directly related to the above stories and was founded on the symbolic encounter between the Survivors and the Righteous. The Grodzka Gate as a sym‑
bolic meeting point between the Jewish Town and the Christian Town was a perfect setting for the realisation of this idea. On both sides of the Gate, the spiritual centres of each of the two Towns thrived for hundreds of years. Sadly, the Great Syna‑
gogue and St. Michael's Church are both now gone. Their
foundations were embedded into the same Lublin soil – hence
the name for the mystery One Land – Two Temples. They were living evidence of the long, peaceful co ‑existence of both com‑
munities. Their destruction signified the loss of a certain kind of metaphysical order which governed the land. Whenever we witness deprivation to such an extent, evil and hatred ulti‑
mately follow. The mystery, given the form of a para ‑theatrical performance, was aimed at a symbolic reconstitution of the lost metaphysical order. That is why the soil dug out from the sites where the two temples once stood and later mixed in the Grodzka Gate has become such an important element of the mystery.
In the enactment Holocaust Survivors stood on the one side of the Gate while on the other a line was formed of those who saved them – the Righteous Among the Nations. Leading from the Gate to both of the demolished temples “live corridors”
were created of spectators and participants standing side by side. Inside these living passages the Survivors and the Righteous were waiting. The Righteous passed a pot contain‑
ing soil taken from the church site between one another, and Survivors, likewise, handed one another a pot with soil taken from the area of the synagogue.
The culminating moment of the mystery was mixing the soil brought into the Grodzka Gate from the two neighbouring towns and planting two grapevines in them symbolising the two lost temples. The soil was mixed by father Jakub Weksler‑
‑Waszkinel, once a Jewish boy saved from the Holocaust by a Polish woman, who became his mother – the news of which was disclosed to him only after he had already become a Catholic priest.
The vines were planted by two school students – one from
Poland and the other from Israel. The mystery was conducted
by two narrators situated on either side of the Gate. Each of
them took their turn to introduce the Righteous and the Survi‑
vors who shared their stories during the event. In this way the action of the mystery was constantly transmitted from one side of the Gate to the other. Through the careful arrangement of loudspeakers, the participants of the mystery could hear eve‑
rything that was taking place on both sides of the Gate. The
mystery began with all the lights around the Grodzka Gate
being switched off.
2. pOem Of The pLace Mystery
Mystery Poem of the Place (2002, 2004) was meant to dem‑
onstrate that the forgotten or hidden past always finds ways to come back. In this mystery, light was the symbol of the returning Memory of the neglected Jewish Quarter. It shone out from under the concrete surface covering the space of the former Jewish Town. In the realisation of the mystery, man‑
holes situated in the area were used. They were pried open
and filled with floodlights which were switched on during the
performance.
THE COURSE Of THE POEM OF THE PLACE MYSTERY
The mystery started at 8 pm on the 12
thof October 2002 with the toll of a bell from a church situated in the vicinity of the Grodzka Gate. At the same time, lights in the entire area of the former Jewish Town were switched off – creating the “stage”
for the performance. On the Old Town side of the Gate the lights were left on. Undisturbed, regular, daily life continued there. for the duration of the mystery, the Grodzka Gate became a Gate between light and darkness. The participants of the mystery left the brightly lit, lively Old Town to enter the darkness lurking behind the Gate. At this exact moment, floodlights coming from the open manholes began to emerge in front of them. The light resurfacing from underneath the con‑
crete parking lot symbolised the returning of Memory. voices could be also heard from the manholes. They came with the recorded stories of the Jewish Town and its destruction told by the inhabitants of Lublin. The participants of the mystery fol‑
lowed the path marked with light which led through the area of the long gone Jewish Town up to the
site where a synagogue once stood. It was there that a huge black curtain was hung. The light and voices coming out of the open manholes helped create an installation exposing the usually hidden and invisible significance of the empty space surrounding the Grodzka Gate.
“THE LAMP Of MEMORY”
In 2004, to conclude the The Poem
of the Place Mystery, we switched on
a pre ‑war street lamp standing in the area. We wanted the
light which hitherto pierced the concrete shell to remain with
us. The lamp continues to shine day and night as a testament
to the Memory of the Jewish town and its inhabitants.
3. The mysTery Of LighT and darkness
The Mystery of Light and Darkness is an annual commemora‑
tion of the Liquidation of the Lublin ghetto (16 March 1942).
The mystery starts in the early hours of the evening. In the area
of the former Jewish Town all lights are switched off. On the
side of the Gate where the Old Town is today the light remains
and everyday life of the city continues. for a short period, the
Grodzka Gate is transformed into a Transition Point between
Light and Darkness. There is only one street lamp alight in
the dark. It is the last, salvaged lantern of the Jewish Town –
the “Lamp of Memory”. During the mystery, the names of the
pre ‑war inhabitants of the Jewish district are read out in the
Grodzka Gate. The first Mystery of Light and Darkness was
held on the 16
thof March 2006.
4. Mystery of MeMory LubLin. memOry Of The hOLOcausT
The performance entitled Lublin. Memory of the Holocaust Mystery had the form of an oratorio and took place in the Grodzka Gate Centre on the 16
thof March 2011 to com‑
memorate the anniversary of the beginning of the Lublin ghetto
liquidation (16 March 1942). The “music” used during the
oratorio was a composition of looped sounds and archival
recordings referring to the Shoah (e.g. original accounts of
historical witnesses). The essence of the oratorio’s structure
was based on the text of a libretto read out by a narrator. The
libretto was a carefully prepared selection of fragments from
Ida Glickstein’s diary relating the annihilation of the Lublin
ghetto. The names of the former inhabitants of the Jewish Town
were also read out during the performance.
Part 3
“LubLIn. MeMory of the
hoLocaust” MeMory traIL
“Lublin. Memory of the Holocaust” Memory Trail, designed by the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre, is a crucial part of the 2017 Commemoration which was prepared for the 75th anniversary of the commencement of Operation Reinhard and the Liquidation of the Podzamcze Ghetto in Lublin. The Memory Trail was created to remind everyone of the locations relating to the Jewish Holocaust still existing in the urban space of Lublin
4.
4 The destruction of the Jewish Town in Lublin The beginning of the German occupation of Lublin
The German army entered and seized Lublin on March 18, 1939. Soon after, repressions towards the citizens began – Jews in particular were the focus of
Nazi attention. financial contributions were imposed on the Jewish inhabitants of Lublin; most of the property owned by them was confiscated; numerous round ‑ups were organized to capture Jews for forced labour. Jewish citizens were humiliated on a daily basis (religious Jews had their beards cut; Jews had to take their hats off to Germans).
What is more, methodical resettlement actions were carried out during which Jews were forcibly displaced from their houses and apartments. The actions were organised by Germans in order to acquire lodgings for the new arrivals: administration workers and military authorities. One of the most extensive resettlement actions took place on November 9, 1939. On that day approximately 500 Jewish families were evicted from apartments situated in the centre of the city. Their homes were additionally plundered by German soldiers.
According to the decree issued on December 1, 1939 all Jews from the age of 10 and up were forced to wear armbands marked with the Star of David.
On December 11, 1939 all Jewish schools were closed and the headmasters of the Polish ones had to remove pupils and teachers of Jewish descent from their facilities.
The creation of the Judenrat
On January 24, 1940 the Jewish Council (Judenrat) was created in Lublin as a form of self ‑government for the Jewish inhabitants of the city. In reality, the council was entirely subordinated to German authorities and its function was merely to obey their orders. The function of the Judenrat was to collect monetary contributions from the Jewish community, register Jewish citizens and their property, and appoint the daily quota of forced labour. Additionally, the Jewish Council provided aid to the arriving Jewish refugees and raised money for charity to help the poorest citizens. from the very outset of their activities, the particular Judenrats caused considerable controversy among Jews. Among many things, the councils were accused of zealous collaboration with Germans.
Judenrats supervised the so ‑called Jewish Police created to control the area of the ghetto. Jewish Police officers were also supposed to follow German orders directly. Regular Jewish citizens treated the policemen with great dislike and even animosity provoked by their brutal actions towards fellow citizens.
The resettlement of Jews from Wieniawa
All of the Jewish inhabitants of the Wieniawa District were resettled from their homes at the beginning of May 1940.
The establishment of the ghetto (March 24, 1941)
On March 20, 1941 the German governor of Lublin issued a decree concern‑
ing the establishment of an “enclosed Jewish housing quarter” on the 24th of March. The quarter included the Podzamcze District (an area surrounding Lublin Castle, delimited with Lubartowska Street) and a part of the Old Town.
The creation of the ghetto was preceded by the resettlement of approx.
14,000 Lublin Jews to the neighbouring towns and villages during the displace‑
ment action which took place between the 9th and 14th of March.
Subsequently, the Nazis gathered about 32,000 Jews in a relatively small area of the ghetto, which was initially not fenced off. famine, crowded flats, poor sanitary conditions, lack of medical care, bouts of epidemics, unemploy‑
ment and poverty – all of these factors soon led to the continuously worsening misery of the ghetto inhabitants and the rise in their mortality rate. food rations
(food stamps) were minimal and thus far from sufficient. To survive, Jewish citizens needed money to shop for food in the so ‑called black market. Such conditions forced many to sell their last remaining valuables.
On October 15, 1941 the German authorities introduced the death penalty for Jews leaving the ghetto and for anyone trying to help them in any form.
At the turn of 1941/1942 barbed wire entanglements were placed along the boundaries of the ghetto area. Also, guarded gates were constructed in several locations and locked at night. On february 22, 1942 the ghetto was divided into sections “A” and “B”. The latter housed Jews employed by the Germans.
Section “A” was inhabited by Jews selected for death.
The liquidation of the ghetto (March 16 – April 14, 1942)
The liquidation of ghetto “A” began at night on the 16th of March. After one of the quarters adjacent to Lubartowska Street was surrounded by soldiers, its Jewish inhabitants were rushed out of their apartments and led to the Maharshal Synagogue. Jews were filed into a column of approx. 1,400 people and escorted to the railway platform situated in the area of the Municipal Slaugh‑
terhouse (the present ‑day Turystyczna Street).
Jews were loaded onto freight cars and in the first hours of the morning on March 17 left Lublin in the first human transport headed for the death camp in Bełżec. The “aktion” carried out that night marked the beginning of Operation Reinhard.
The resettlement actions continued (with a single several ‑day break) until the 14th of April. During that period approximately 28,000 Jews were taken from the Lublin ghetto to the death camp in Bełżec.
Operation Reinhard
“Aktion Reinhardt” was aimed at a methodical slaughter of all Jewish citizens living in the territory of the General Government who were mostly Polish Jews imprisoned in ghettos established exactly for this reason. The headquarters of
“Aktion Reinhardt” operated from Lublin. In the course of 20 months big and small communities of Polish Jews were being liquidated daily. Approximately 2 million Jews, mainly from Poland, but also other European countries, lost their lives during Operation Reinhard. Most of them were murdered in three death camps created especially to serve the aims of “Aktion Reinhardt”, namely:
Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.
Majdanek also functioned as a death camp for a while. Operation Rein‑
hard was based on the principles of an industrial scale extermination of Jews – similar to the workings of a production line. The very essence of the Shoah can be illustrated with the Nazi idea for “Aktion Reinhardt”.
The establishment of the ghetto in Majdan Tatarski (April 16, 1942) In accordance with the decree issued on the 16th of April a new ghetto in Majdan Tatarski was to be opened to house only those inhabitants of the old ghetto who owned work permits: J -Ausweis cards. The resettlement action, during which Jews were moved to the new ghetto took place between the 17th and 19th of April. The official permission to move was granted to 3,300 Jewish citizens, which corresponded with the number of issued work permits. Eventually, twice as many people arrived in the area of the new ghetto (approx. 7,000) bearing forged documents. Already on the night between the 19th and 20th of April the German authorities ordered a general census of Jews inhabiting
