Execution Memorial Majdanek

On the edge of a large sloping grass area, this simple plaque commemorates the 18,400 Jews, both prisoners of Majdanek and forced laborers from labor camps in the Lublin district, who were summarily liquidated in just one day at this place.

Directly behind the memorial, the execution site stretches and the former mass graves into which the Jews were first thrown are still clearly visible as large, deep trenches.
A few days after the terrible event, a Sonderncommando was charged with exhuming and burning these bodies, as well as the remains of other victims of Aktion Erntefest who had been murdered elsewhere in the area.

Their ashes were mixed with earth and waste, of which 1,300 m³ is still stored in an immense, open dome right next to the site of the memorial to this day.
Background: In an effort to put an end to the "Jewish Question" for good, Reichsmarschal Heinrich Himmler had quietly worked out Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival) with the complete extermination of all Jews in the General Government, which includes the city of Lublin and the region. Bialystok.
On November 3, 1943 at the start of the day, what would turn out to be the largest massacre of the Second World War, started, two days later Lublin was officially declared "Judenrein", at various locations around Lublin approximately 42,000 Jews were killed, including hundreds of Dutch people .

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Source

• Text: Herma de Vries
• Photos: Herma de Vries