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Remembrance Trail

Lublin. Memory of Holocaust

The trail marks the borders of the ghetto in Podzamcze and the last road of Lublin Jews to Umschlagplatz, from where about 28,000 people were transported to the death camp in Bełżec. The trail also included other areas that had not been remembered so far, such as the Jewish district in Wieniawa, the ghetto in Majdan Tatarski, and the place where the children and their nurses were killed.

Option 1. - The boundaries of the getto in Podzamcze

Length of the trail: 4.1 km
Walking time: 2 hours

The border of the ghetto is part of the Remembrance Trail, commemorating the existence of the ghetto in Podzamcze during the Lublin occupation, established by the Germans on March 24, 1941. About 35,000 Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto fenced with a barbed-wire fence. The creation of the ghetto was a fundamental act of excluding the Jewish community from the life of the city and its isolation from other inhabitants.

Marking the ghetto border – concrete tiles and murals
43 concrete tiles were placed in the area where the ghetto border ran. Their number symbolically refers to the fact that 43,000 Jews lived in Lublin before the war. Moreover, murals were created in selected places within the ghetto area. They create a story about a Jewish town in Lublin – about its life and extermination.

  • Mural al. Unii Lubelskiej (next to Vivo! Shopping Centre) was painted on the wall supporting the shore of Czechówka. It is a collage of photos by Stefan Kiełsznia, taken on Nowa, Lubartowska, and Kowalska streets in the 1930s. The mural features a plan of Lublin from 1928 with the Jewish district marked on it and a work by Jakub Glatsztejn Lublin, “My holy town”.
  • Mural ul. Lubartowska 47 was made on the wall of the tenement house at the crossing of Lubartowska and Ruska streets. It is a quote from a novel by Anna Langfus, a Jewish writer from Lublin who was saved from extermination. The author writes what she felt after the creation of a ghetto in Lublin, separated from the city by barbed wire.
  • Mural ul. Kowalska 3 was made on the wall of a tenement house next to the gate to the Lublin ghetto. It is a poem by Julia Hartwig “Koleżanka”, describing the poet’s accidental meeting with her school friends, Jewish women, next to the ghetto border.
  • Mural ul. Lubartowska 70 is a letter written by an unknown resident of the Lublin ghetto. A dramatic document written in Yiddish was sent to someone in the Warsaw Ghetto. The letter survived, but the text is illegible in many places.

Option 2. - The last road - road to Umshlagplatz

Length of the trail: 4.5 km
Walking time: 1.5 hours

This part of the Remembrance Trail commemorates the path taken by Jews led to the railway ramp at ul. Zimna. They were taken to the death camp in Bełżec from there. Columns of walking Jews ran along the following streets: Ruska, Kalinowszczyzna, Turystyczna up to the municipal slaughterhouse at ul. Zimna, where there was a railway ramp. The place where they were gathered before marching to the ramp was the Maharshal synagogue.
The Memorial Trail is marked out by 21 boards with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the last 22nd letter is in the space of the art installation located on the Umschlagplatz.

Option 3. - "Not/Memory of the Place"

One of the most significant and forgotten places in Lublin related to the extermination of Jews is the no longer existing railway ramp of the former municipal slaughterhouse at Zimna Street. From there, from March 16 to April 14, 1942, the Jews were transported to the death camp in Bełżec. Installation of “Not/Memory of the Place” on the plot located on the site of the former railway ramp.

There is a metal container on the plot, which can be entered from ul. Zimna through a pierced wall. Thanks to the holes in the shape of Hebrew letters cut in the walls of the container, we can see the space of the plot. The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is cut in the roof of the container. You can see the sky through it. The space, where the installation was created, was separated from the entire area of ​​the former ramp. The container closing wall is made of rusty sheet metal. Rust is supposed to emphasize the process of memory destruction and death taking place here.

Option 4. - Other places of remembrance

Jewish district in Podzamcze
After passing the Grodzka Gate, we stand in front of a large empty space in the former Jewish town. This place is commemorated by:

  • The Lamp of Memory, which stands at the intersection of Krawiecka and Podwale Streets before the war. The Lamp has been on since 2004. It looked like the synagogue’s ner tamid (Heb. “eternal light”), and it doesn’t turn off during the day or night, reminding us of the Jewish city and its inhabitants.
  • Jakub Glatsztejn’s house, ul. Jateczna 25. Lublin became a symbolic place of extermination of Jews in his works. In the piece “Lublin, my holy town” he presented the image of the Lublin Jewish town, which is dying out forever. Its text is placed on a nearby mural.

The ghetto in Majdan Tatarski
After the liquidation of the so-called old ghetto in Podzamcze, the Germans established a residual ghetto on April 14, 1942 in the Majdan Tatarski district. Near the place where the entrance to the ghetto was located, 2 concrete boards informing about the history of this place were placed.

Place of execution of Jewish children from the nursery and their minders
On March 24, 1942, during the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto in Podzamcze, the Germans deported from the Jewish orphanage at ul. Grodzka 11, over a hundred children with three carers. They were all shot in the area of ​​the former sand mine.

The area of ​​the non-existent Jewish district in Wieniawa
The Jewish district in Wieniawa was a small town established as a separate town at the beginning of the 17th century, incorporated into Lublin in 1916. Until 1939, Jews constituted approx. 70 percent of the population. In the centre of Wieniawa, there was the market square, next to which there was a synagogue, a house of prayer, and a cemetery. In May 1940, the Germans displaced the Jews to Podzamcze, and the buildings and the Jewish cemetery were destroyed.