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This year we honour the 72. anniversary of the beginning of mass executions of Jewish people in the Lublin District, carried out by the Hamburg Reserve Battalion 101. Its German members had participated in shooting of 38,000 Jews, and in deporting another 45,000 Jews to death camps. Following the tragic history, a group of students of Police Academy in Hamburg visited Lublin in order to come to terms with the past of their military formation. They took part in one of the historic civic educational projects, supported by the State Museum at Majdanek since 2001.

The following places were shown to the students: The State Museum at Majdanek, The Museum - Memorial Site in Bełżec, the memorial site of Rotunda in Zamość and the city of Józefów, where the mass executions of Jewish children, men and women had started. In addition, the students met in person with Mrs. Stanisława Kruszewska, the former prisoner of Majdanek. They also listened to the lecture about the history of Shoah, as well as about German colonisation policy, in the Lublin District. The visit to the genuine historical places aimed, on the one hand, at paying tribute to the Nazi victims, and on the other hand, at fulfilling cognitive functions referring to the role of German police in the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in theLublin District, including an attempt to find an answer to the question concerning crime mechanisms which determined the attitudes and behaviours of the perpetrators.