The panel discussion organised by the State Museum at Majdanek, entitled “Einsatz Reinhardt” in the context of the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Roles and consequences, is going to feature the leading historians specialising in the subject of the Holocaust. The debate is going take place in Collegium Iuridicum of the Catholic University of Lublin, situated at Spokojna 1 Street in Lublin. The event starts at 5 p.m. on March 17.

Neither the location nor the date of the debate are coincidental. It was on March 17, 1942, eighty years ago, when the first Jewish deportees from the Lwów and Lublin ghettos arrived at the extermination camp in Bełżec. That was the beginning of “Einsatz Reinhardt” – the genocidal operation within the course of which the German and Austrian Nazis murdered approx. 2,000,000 Jewish women, children, and men. Lublin became the centre of logistics for the mass extermination programme, with its staff headquarters located in the former Stefan Batory junior high school (today Collegium Iuridicum, KUL).

The discussion concerning the current state of knowledge about “Einsatz Reinhardt,” its significance in the context of the “final solution to the Jewish question,” and the exhibitions describing those events is going to be held among:

Adam Kopciowski, PhD, and Director to the Department of Culture and History of Jews in the Institute of Cultural Studies, UMCS
Dariusz Libionka, PhD, Chief Historian for Research on the Extermination of Jews at the State Museum at Majdanek, Professor in the Polish Academy of Sciences, Chief Editor of the “Holocaust Studies and Materials” annual journal
Stephen Lehnsteadt, Professor of the Holocaust Studies and the Jewish Studies of the Touro College in Berlin, former researcher of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw

The discussion will be moderated by the Director of the State Museum at Majdanek, Tomasz Kranz, PhD.

During the event we are additionally going to present a fragment of the documentary prepared by the State Museum at Majdanek, entitled “The Traces of Operation ‘Reinhardt’ in Lublin. The discussion will also be an opportunity to discover the recent publications released by the Museum – among them, the latest issue of the “Varia” magazine, which includes a collection of historical outlines, archival photographs, and unique documents related to “Einsatz Reinhardt.”