Zbylitowska Góra & Majdanek

Today we woke up early to leave Krakow and head towards Lublin. On the way to Lublin, we stopped outside the village of Tarnow to visit Zbylitowska Góra (information below). We had the chance to take some time on our own to contemplate everything that occurred there. Many of us just sat in deep thought, wrote in our journals or paid respect by simply being in silence.

After some time there, we drove 3 1/2 hours to Lublin where we visited the death camp of Majdanek. Walking around these hallowed grounds brought many emotions to everyone on the trip. We heard all about the history of this place and then walked through the showers, gas chambers, barracks, crematorium and finished at the memorial at the end where we had a ceremony and said the Kaddish all together in memory of the thousands that perished there.

Tomorrow we are spending the day in Warsaw before heading to Israel. We may not have access to the internet until we get to Israel so may not be able to update the blog on Thursday..

Zbylitowska Góra is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Tarnów, within Tarnów County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately 6 miles south-west of Tarnów and 44 miles east of the regional capital Kraków. It is the site of a mass grave from World War II, which is marked by a monument. In June 1942 approximately 10,000 people, including 6,000 Jews and about 800 children were executed by the Nazis, and buried in pits in the Buczyna forest in Zbylitowska Góra

Majdanek

Majdanek or KL Lublin was a Nazi German concentration and extermination camp established on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. Although initially purposed for forced labor rather than extermination, the camp was used to kill people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Jews within their General Government territory of Poland. Due to the camp's proximity to Lublin, prisoners were able to communicate with the outside world through letters smuggled out by civilian workers who entered the camp.