Majdanek and Lublin Tour

Lublin. Krakow Gate. Representative entrance to the royal and parliamentary retinues coming from Krakow, also served a defensive and observational function.

It is a conglomeration of different styles. Over the years, added new elements to it.

Gothic gate from the fourteenth century. Two-storey superstructure of the gate from the fifteenth century. Corner towers from the sixteenth century. Baroque dome on the tower from the eighteenth century. Terrace on the tower for fire-fighters from the nineteenth century. 

An interesting is visible clock from the sixteenth century, which traditionally works wrong. Apparently, it is misbehavior of a spirit of watchmaker who once lived in the tower, and more time spent on drinking booze than on repair of the clock.

To this day, no one can remedy this and the poor spirit is forced for centuries to drinking and deterioration. 

Majdanek concentration camp. In 1942, at night took place one of the most spectacular escapes in the camp. Using the time of guards’ change before midnight, 86 Soviet prisoners of war flipped blankets on the wires. Then, on the blankets they put boards and jumped over the fence. At that time there were only two towers guards, one of which jammed a rifle because of nerves. Among 86 prisoners, 84 taken refuge in the forest and they were never found. In retaliation, Germans shot 40 other Soviet prisoners of war in the camp.

The camp commander tried to show in the statistics that 40 killed in the camp were shot while trying to escape, but the fraud was detected quickly. The commander has been removed from the office after a month. After year he was arrested.

And after 2 years he was shot in Buchenwald concentration camp – one month before the end of the war, in April 1945.