Lukow-2012

The Opening of a Plaque Commemorating the Mass Killing of the Lukow Jews

Lukow, October 5th, 2012

On Oct. 5th, 2012, on the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lukow ghetto, a commemoration ceremony of the Holocaust victims took place in Lukow. The event was initiated and organized by Mr. Krzysztof Czubaszek, a Warsaw-based historian and a native of Lukow, the author of a comprehensive research on the history of the Lukow Jews (Zydzi Lukowa i okolic), who personally financed the manufacture of a plaque commemorating the mass killing of the Jewish population in Lukow. The plaque was solemnly opened on the wall of the former Townhall building where thousands of people had been shot during the German occupation of Lukow.

Among the event participants were representatives of the city government, employees of the Lukow Regional Museum, schoolchildren and guests from Poland and other countries (including myself and my wife). The ceremony was followed by a conference on the history of the Jewish genocide in Lukow in the local community center and a brief tour of Lukow, in which the visitors walked the same road to the Lukow railway station from which the Lukow Jews were driven directly to Treblinka and to the Malcanowski forest where mass extermination of Jews took place during the war. The tour was guided by Mr. Krzysztof Czubaszek.