We present the new issue of the “Varia” magazine. The contents include historical outlines, archival photographs, and unique documents pertaining to the mass extermination of Jews in the General Government conducted by the Third Reich in the years 1942-1943 under the codename “Einsatz Reinhardt.”

Most of the texts have been compiled by the authors connected with the State Museum at Majdanek. The issue begins with an article by the magazine’s editor, Tomasz Kranz, who explains the origins of the operation’s “Reinhardt” codename. The next historical outlines focus on the course and victims of the mass murder programme, the role of Lublin in the extermination of European Jews, as well as on the particular camps involved in its course: Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Flugplatz. The new “Varia” instalment is supplemented with a rich collection of archival photographs, maps, and 25 documents – some of them are published for the very first time.

On night of 16 to 17 March, 1942, the functionaries of the Sicherheitspolizei [German security police] commanded by Hermann Worthoff entered the Podzamcze ghetto in Lublin. From there, they would send 1,000 Jews every following day. The victims cramped inside freight cars were sent to the extermination camp in Bełżec. They were entirely oblivious of their tragic fate. The annihilation of Lublin’s Jewish community marked the beginning of the genocidal operation codenamed “Einsatz Reinhardt.” The German and Austrian Nazis murdered approximately 2,000,000 Jewish women, children, and men it its course.

The magazine is published in a Polish-English version. It is available both in the stationary and online bookstore. The new issue of the “Varia” magazine will also be on sale on March 17 at 5:00 p.m. during a debate organised by the State Museum at Majdanek in the former headquarters of operation “Reinhardt.” Today the building houses the Collegium Iuridicum of the Catholic University of Lublin. The discussion is held under the title: “Einsatz Reinhardt” in the context of the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Roles and consequences.

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Table of contents:

Tomasz Kranz, "Einsatz Reinhardt” – the Codename of the Holocaust in the General Government

Dariusz Libionka, The Course and Victims of Operation “Reinhardt”

Jakub Chmielewski, Lublin as a Logistics Centre for the Extermination of Jews from the General Government

Wojciech Lenarczyk, Flugplatz – the Transhipment Station of “Einsatz Reinhardt”

Tomasz Kranz, Majdanek in Operation “Reinhardt”

Tomasz Hanejko, SS-Sonderkommando Belzec

Tomasz Oleksy-Zborowski, SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor

Edward Kopówka, SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka

Bibliography

Documents

Maps