For the second time, the State Museum at Majdanek participated successfully in the programme “Accessible culture” of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. This year, about 2,500 students of intermediate and high schools from whole Poland took part in free museum classes organized by the State Museum at Majdanek and the Museum – Memorial Site in Bełżec. The number of participants almost doubled when compared with 2015.

Participants of museum classes learnt about the history of the former German death camp at Majdanek and death camp in Bełżec. They not only visited memorials and historical exhibitions but they also actively worked with source materials, such as documents, photos or accounts by witnesses of history. During some museum classes aimed at high school students, employees of the Museum presented the profiles of some perpetrators and encouraged students to analyze motives and psychological mechanisms affecting criminal behaviors.

“Accessible culture” is the programme funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, which aims at reducing obstacles to access to culture and creating the need to participate in it. In 2016, the State Museum at Majdanek organized, as a part of this programmme, more than 80 museum lessons.