The State Museum at Majdanek is the world first institution established on the grounds of a former camp. Over the eight decades, the Museum has undergone a remarkable transformation and evolved both as a repository of material traces of the past, and as a living institution that responds to social change, rises to new challenges, and sets benchmarks in the field of historical museology.

Another stage of the “Spaces of the Holocaust” project is behind us. After we went to the German and Dutch museums in April and May, and presented our outdoor exhibition in both countries, now it came the time for a revisit of our partners to Poland.

We encourage you to follow our livestreamed debate entitled “40 Years after the Shoah. The Holocaust in the Light of Claude Lanzmann’s Documentary.” The discussion will launch our international conference “Trains of Death – Railways Transports to the German Death Camps. State of Knowledge and Research Proposals” hosted by the State Museum at Majdanek and the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór on 8-10 September 2025.

In April and May the staff of the State Museum at Majdanek went on study tours at the key museums and education centres of Amsterdam and Berlin. The aim of their networking visit was to learn about the activities and programmes of foreign historical museums and to exchange ideas and experiences with diverse museum professionals.

In order to mark the 80th anniversary of the World War II ending in Europe, we share our latest publication prepared for Polish and foreign teachers.

80 years ago, on 8 May 1945, World War II ended. Or maybe – to paraphrase dr Zygmunt Klukowski, who is cited in one of the published essays – we entered the 86th year of war in January 2025?

On 23-28 March 2025 the State Museum at Majdanek with its branches in Bełżec and Sobibór hosted an international exchange for the youth from Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands.

We proudly announce that an exhibition developed by the State Museum at Majdanek is for the first time presented to the audience in the Netherlands. The project entitled “Spaces of the Holocaust: Majdanek, Bełżec, Sobibór” launches at the Kamp Westerbork Memorial, where all visitors can see an exhibition displayed under the same title.

We invite historians, researchers, regionalists, and students, for our academic conference – “Trains of Death – Railway Transports to the German Death Camps. State of Knowledge and Research Postulates – that is going to take place at the Museum in Memorial in Sobibór on 8-10 September.

On 26 January the director of the State Museum at Majdanek dr Tomasz Kranz was granted the National Leadership Award by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The American institution appreciated his long-time engagement in the Holocaust remembrance as well as the input in the field of education in Poland.

It is time to draw up a summary of 2024. It was primarily marked by two important anniversaries: the 80th jubilee of the State Museum at Majdanek and the 20th anniversary of creating the Museum and Memorial in Bełżec. In July we recalled the moment when exactly 80 years passed from the final liquidation of KL Lublin.

We are pleased to announce that on December 30, 2024, Hanna Wróblewska, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, appointed Tomasz Kranz as the Director of the State Museum at Majdanek. He was appointed for a 5-year-term through a competition prcedure.

On 23 October 2024, at the Lublin Conference Centre, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the State Museum at Majdanek. It was a spontaneous occasion for a meeting within the circle of museologists and friends of the Museum, reminding of the institution’s history, presentation of present-day activity as well as honouring the most deserving employees.

In October 1944, just three months after the liquidation of the Majdanek German Nazi concentration camp, a Museum was established on its former grounds. It was the world’s first Memorial dedicated to the victims of World War II.

Museum and Memorial in Sobibór received a special commendation in the European Museum of the Year Award 2024 (EMYA) prestigious contest. The award ceremony gala was held on 4 May in Portimao, Portugal. 50 European museum were nominated including 5 candidates from Poland.

During another ”Museum in Action” seminar, we reflected on how to prepare the text for the editorial process and how to plan the works on creating an exhibition. The course aims to improve the skills of our staff and to pursue the goals forming the foundation of our institution more effectively.

Nearly 15 speakers were invited to participate in the on-line conference "Museum exhibitions in the Holocaust memorials: from Bełżec to Sobibór" organized on June 4–5, 2024. It is dedicated to a broader context of influence and perception of exhibitions in the museums established on the former camp grounds. Register and take part in our event. It will be held in English, under honorary patronage of the National Institute of Museums.

On 15 April 2024, the inaugural session of the Council of the State Museum at Majdanek took place. Appointed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for the 2024–2028 term of office, a new Council has a task to assess the Museum activities and approve its plans.

SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor was the final extermination camp of operation “Reinhardt” to be liquidated, and – in the hopes of the perpetrators – forever forgotten. The crime traces concealed in the autumn of 1943 as well as the evidence for the lives of Jews that were murdered in the camp have been recovered during the archaeological research and secured.

On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day we invoke the memory of the six million Jewish women, children and men – victims of transports, inhuman living conditions in the locked ghettos, executions, manhunts, round-ups, extermination in the gas chambers. The central and the most bloody stage of the Holocaust was perpetrated in the General Government under the codename “Einsatz Reinhardt.”

The German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated on 27 January 1945. In recognition of that event, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed it as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It constitutes an opportunity to even more eagerly reflect on the tragic fate of Jews – victims of hatred murdered during World War II – as well as on the current situation of humanity in the 21st century.

We are proud that our branch - the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór has been nominated for the prestigious European Museum of the Year Award.

Recently we finished our nearly two-year-long campaign of commemorating the 80th anniversary of operation "Reinhardt." Between March 2022 and November 2023 we held nearly 50 various projects and activities that aimed at raising awareness about the genocide of nearly 2,000,000 Jews.

We are glad to announce that our latest book project has been accomplished. “The Infrastructure of Operation Reinhardt” is now available to the English-speaking readers