SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
“DEATH TRAINS”
Sobibór Museum and Memorial
The conference kicked off on September 8 with a panel discussion entitled "40 Years After 'Shoah'. The Holocaust Through the Lens of Claude Lanzmann's Documentary". Panellists Bartosz Kwieciński (Jagiellonian University), Katarzyna Person (Warsaw Ghetto Museum) and Piotr Witek (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University) explored the artistic significance of the film and its profound influence on shaping European memory of the Holocaust. They also tackled some of the criticisms that the documentary has faced, particularly within Poland. Director of the Majdanek State Museum (PMM), Tomasz Kranz, moderated the discussion, emphasising that "it's essential to understand that the victims' ordeal began much earlier – in the places of deportation where the trains set off".
The programme for the next two days of the conference included the following presentations:
• Marcin Przegiętka, IPN (Institute of National Remembrance), Models of cooperation between the Reich Railways, the Eastern Railway, and the SS and police regarding the transportation of displaced persons to the GG (General Government), as well as prisoners to concentration and extermination camps.
• Jan Hlavinka (Holocaust Documentation Centre in Bratislava), From Slovakia to District Lublin: The Mass Deportations of Slovak Jews during Operation Reinhardt
• Jakub Strýček (Slezské univerzity
v Opavě), Organisation and course of deportations from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the Lublin District.
• Dariusz Libionka (PMM), Recognising transports to the "Operation Reinhardt" and Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps by the intelligence structures of the Polish Underground State
• Andrzej Grzegorczyk (Museum of Polish Children - victims of totalitarianism in Łódź), The role of the railways in the Wartheland during the deportation of Jews to the extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem.
• Bartłomiej Grzanka (Museum of the former German extermination camp Kulmhof in Chełmno nad Nerem), "After
a short drive we stop at the KULMHOF station". The role of the Sompolno-Dąbie section of the Kujawska Kolej Dojazdowa (Kujawska Commuter Railway) in the transport of victims to the German extermination camp in Chełmno
• Stefan Michał Marcinkiewicz (University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn), “PJ-39” (16 XII 1942) and „RSHA Augustow” (3 II 1943). Death trains from Prostki
• Jakub Chmielewski (PMM), Railway Personnel and the Holocaust in the GG -
a preliminary study of sources
• Jacob Flaws (Kean University), Death Traffic: The Railway Witnesses of Operation Reinhard
• Marta Marzanska (Yad Vashem), Overview of The Deportation of Jews Project Yad Vashem on the Example of Transports to Sobibor
• Anna Remiszewska, Monika Samuel (Treblinka Museum), The rail workers of Treblinka in relation to the camps operating nearby
• Agnieszka Kajczyk of ŻIH (Jewish Historical Institute), Photographs and films depicting the deportations of Jews.
One key objective of the conference was to deepen understanding of the logistics behind deportation, a topic that, despite the passage of years, remains largely underexplored. This objective will also be supported by a post-conference volume planned for publication next year.
The Sobibór Museum and Memorial recently hosted a scientific conference titled "Death Trains – Rail Transport to German Extermination Camps. Current Knowledge and Research Proposals". From September 8 to 10, researchers, historians and museum curators came together to discuss the crucial role that railways played in the systematic extermination of Jews. Between 1942 and 1944, millions of Jews from across Europe were transported by train to various death and concentration camps.
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