OnThisDay, 19th July 1944, the German Nazi security authorities set about liquidating the Lublin Castle prison in Poland.

 OnThisDay, 19th July 1944, the German Nazi security authorities set about liquidating the Lublin Castle prison in Poland. 



About 800 prisoners were taken to the German Nazi Majdanek concentration camp, where they were shot.

 In an order of 20th July, the Commander of the Security Police and Security Service instructed: 

In the event of a surprising development of the situation which will make it impossible to transport the prisoners, the prisoners are to be liquidated, with the shot dead to be disposed of according to the possibilities (burned, buildings blown up, etc.).

On 22nd July 1944, the Gestapo carried out the last and largest execution of the Castle's prisoners. 

On that day, at around 9.00 a.m., an armed group of Gestapo men headed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Worthoff arrived at the Castle and went to Ward 1, when they were ordered to open the cells from number 7 to 11. 

They started shooting at the prisoners through the bars.

 They were running away from the bullets against the walls, so they were led across the courtyard to the spacious cell number 35 in ward five. 

First the Jews in this cell (it was a tailor's workshop), including women and children, were murdered. 

Then the prisoners from cells 8 and 9 of ward one were shot. When the cell was already filled with corpses, the others were murdered in the neighbouring cell 34.

More than 300 people were murdered in two hours. 

The massacre of prisoners was halted when the prison authorities received the order to leave Lublin immediately. 

The Gestapo men, together with the prison warden, the German staff and a group of about 200 German prisoners, left the Castle. 

After the Germans escaped, the Polish guards opened the cells and about 1,000 inmates left the prison.

Residents of Lublin entered the Castle - they searched for their loved ones and gave aid to the wounded. 

The corpses of 127 unidentified prisoners remained in the prison and were buried on 28th July 1944 in a mass grave on the south side of the Castle. 

On 25th February 1954, the remains were exhumed and moved to the Lublin cemetery in Lipowa Street.

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