An open-air exhibition “Extermination of Jews as part of the German Operation Reinhardt” has opened in Przemyśl. The exhibition, presenting the history of the mass extermination of Jews in the General Government, carried out by the Third Reich in 1942-1943, was prepared on the 80th anniversary of Operation Reinhardt by the State Museum at Majdanek in cooperation with the Jewish Historical Institute, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum and the Society for Educational Projects.

“In 18 months, Operation Reinhardt cost nearly 2 million lives. In addition to Polish citizens of Jewish origin, more than 100,000 Jews from other countries – France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Macedonia and Bulgaria lost their lives in Operation Reinhardt” – wrote Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a letter read at the opening of the exhibition.

Overall, during Operation Reinhardt, SS and police officers murdered approximately 1.7 million Jews. About 1.5 million of them died in the death camps in Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, as well as in the concentration camp at Majdanek. The remaining Jewish victims of the action died during the accompanying mass shootings. An unknown number of Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war were also killed in Operation Reinhardt.

The exhibition is presenting the places and mechanisms of the murder and its perpetrators. Its main message is to commemorate Jewish children, women and men, victims of racist ideology and anti-Semitism, as well as to remind them of their heroic resistance and fight to preserve human dignity and humanity. The honorary patronage over the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the extermination of Jews as part of the German Operation “Reinhardt” was taken by the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda

The opening of the exhibition was accompanied by the concert “As if we never existed” performed by: Darek “Maleo” Malejonek, Lilu and Basia Pospieszalska, and the screening of Michał Szymanowicz’s documentary “Aktion Reinhardt”.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński