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Museums – memorial sites created on the grounds of the former Nazi concentration and death camps are polymorphic institutions. They are perceived as cemeteries, relics of the past, monuments, and carriers of individual and collective memory, but are also becoming museums of the contemporary history, where the memory is subject to inevitable musealization.

How are those phenomena reflected in the historical sites? What challenges, chances, and threats does this change cause, especially in the field of historical education? These were main questions asked during classes organized for the students from the Faculty of History (history didactics) of the Humboldt University in Berlin and their tutors along with Prof. Thomas Sandkühler on September 24. Programme of the workshops included a lecture on didactic basis of the educational activities at the Museum at Majdanek and a discussion wrapping up the classes. Apart from that, the visitors from Germany familiarized themselves with the contemporary historical landscape, ways of visualizing the past, and museum presentations on the grounds of the former death camps in Bełżec and Treblinka.