14.06.2023
Experts’ Discussion Around the New Book: The Infrastructure of operation “Reinhardt”
At 5 p.m. on 20 June we invite everyone to the Majdanek, Bełżec, and Sobibór memorials for a special discussion: “The Landscapes of the Holocaust - the importance of the Lublin region in the history and commemoration of the mass extermination of Jews during World War II.” The root for the discussion, during which we will symbolically connect three memorial sites of operation “Reinhardt” camps, is the premiere of our new book.
Discussion around The Infrastructure of operation “Reinhardt” – a book dedicated to the topic of extermination camps, institutional structures, architectural and spatial components that altogether built up the mass murder apparatus during the Holocaust. Among the participants of the debate moderated by Aleksandra Skrabek there will be the authors of essays included in the book: Tomasz Kranz, Jakub Chmielewski, Ewa Koper, and Tomasz Oleksy-Zborowski. The speakers will focus no only on the topography of the German Nazi camps or ghettos, but also on the role and presence of various sites connected with the history of operation “Reinhardt” in the current cultural landscape of Poland.
The hybrid event will simultaneously take place in:
- The State Museum at Majdanek: Visitor Service Centre
Droga Męczenników Majdanka 67 Street, Lublin
- Educational Centre of the Museum and Memorial in Bełżec
ul. Lwowska 56, Bełżec
- Sobibór Stacja – History and Education Centre
Żłobek 106
All speakers will additionally connect via the ZOOM platform.
Our new book The Infrastructure of operation “Reinhardt” will be offered at 50% discount during the event.
Railway ramps of the extermination camps in Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, where the trains with deportees arrived quickly fell into oblivion after the end of World War II. Similar things happened to the camp sites themselves, where the Germans concealed their crimes by blowing up the gas chambers, dismantling the structures and levelling the grounds. As a result, the camps basically disappeared from the face of the earth and – for several decades – from the world’s collective memory.
The book stems from the academic conference held by the State Museum at Majdanek and is an attempt to emphasise the significance of infrastructural aspect in the persecutions, exploitation, and extermination of Jews in the General Government perpetrated within the framework of operation codenamed “Einsatz Reinhardt.” Analysing the Holocaust from this perspective is vital for the sake of restoring and sustaining the collective and spatially-anchored memory of the victims, particularly within the context of local communities.
Articles Authors:
Justyna Bajuk
Igor Bartosik
Jakub Chmielewski
Martyna Grądzka-Rejak
Bartłomiej Grzanka
Tomasz Hanejko
Ewa Koper
Tomasz Kranz
Stephan Lehnstaedt
Wojciech Lenarczyk
Dariusz Libionka
Grzegorz Michalak
Marek Michalski
Tomasz Oleksy-Zborowski
Sebastian Różycki
Agata Stępnik
Anita Szkarłat
Krzysztof A. Tarkowski