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On December 7-13, for the sixth time, a seminar for Ukrainian teachers entitled “Holocaust in Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland,” has been organized by the State Museum at Majdanek and Ukrainian Centre for Holocaust Studies in Kyiv. As part of the project, study visits to the State Museum at Majdanek, Museum of the Former Death Camp in Sobibór, and Museum – Memorial Site in Bełżec took place.

Participants in the seminar, coming from all over Ukraine, had a chance to learn about the history of such places as Majdanek, Bełżec or Sobibór, where Jewish inhabitants of Ukraine would be deported, but also familiarized themselves with educational activities of the State Museum at Majdanek and its branches. Apart from visiting, workshops and lectures were also organized. The latter ones were devoted, among many other things, to the 70th anniversary of the prisoners’ revolt in the Sobibór camp and mass execution of Jewish prisoners of Majdanek, Trawniki, and Poniatowa, referred to as action “Erntefest.” The project participants were familiarized with the activities of the Museum Archives and Education Department. During the lectures, histories of individual people were highlighted. Not only victims, but also non-Jewish witnesses and perpetrators were discussed. Apart from memorial sites at Majdanek, in Bełżec and Sobibór, guests from Ukraine visited also Lvov, Lublin and Zamość, where they were guided through the places related to the times of the Nazi occupation and extermination of local Jews. A visit to Trawniki turned out to be of great significance, as a discussion broke up there on collaboration in Nazi-occupied Poland.