Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz

Łukaszkiewicz conducted his research at the time when virtually nothing was known about the scale and the exact way in which these atrocities were committed. He published his first findings already in 1946 along with the results of legal and medical inquiries, sworn affidavits of land surveyor T. Trautsolt, Dr H. Wakulicz, the evidence collected by railway workers but most importantly, the testimonies of former prisoners of Treblinka extermination camp who managed to survive the revolt and took part in the Commission's forensic work. Łukaszkiewicz examined the selected graves exhumed at Treblinka I Arbeitslager. His estimate of the total number of the victims of gassing was based on the already proven record of 156 transports with an average of 5,000 prisoners each.{{cite web|url=http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm |title=The Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=HLSS Social Sciences |work=Source: German Crimes in Poland. Volume I. Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Warsaw, 1946 |date=2 February 2000 |access-date=29 July 2014 |author=Compiled by Dr S.D. Stein |format=Internet Archive |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061008222717/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm |archive-date=October 8, 2006 }} Many published results of his enquiries are still considered paramount to the understanding of the Final Solution, even though some specifics have also been revised by modern science.{{cite web |url=http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=8 |title=Majdanek Victims Enumerated. Changes in the history textbooks? |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu |date=23 December 2005 |access-date=29 July 2014 |author=Paweł P. Reszka, Gazeta Wyborcza Lublin}} Łukaszkiewicz is being quoted by the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, the Britannica Polish edition, and the Polish Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN among others. Also, many professional historians including Wolfgang Scheffler and Czesław Rajca used his publications as the source of pertinent data.{{Citation |last1=Kopówka |first1=Edward |author-link1=Edward Kopówka |last2=Rytel-Andrianik |first2=Paweł |title=Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady |trans-title=Monograph, chapt. 3: Treblinka II Death Camp |language=pl |url=http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |publisher=Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The Drohiczyn Scientific Society] |work=Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] |year=2011 |access-date=30 July 2014 |isbn=978-83-7257-496-1 |format=PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB |quote=with selected testimonies, bibliography, alphabetical indexes, photographs, English language summaries, and forewords by Holocaust scholars. |pages=65–66, 114 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010231757/http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2014 |url-status=dead }}{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206622.pdf |title=Majdanek |publisher=Yad Vashem |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the Holocaust |access-date=29 July 2014 |format=PDF file, direct download}}

Łukaszkiewicz was the first Polish researcher to study the 1943 massacre committed at the Majdanek concentration camp under the codename Operation Erntefest. The more substantial revisions to his early research (published in 1948) have been made only in the 1960s and 1970s, when the first testimonies of the Holocaust perpetrators appeared in German court documents during trials.{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/images/media/Erntefest_3-4_listopada_1943_-_zapomniany_epizod_Zaglady_Wstep.pdf |title=Erntefest 3-4 listopada 1943 – Zapomniany epizod Zaglady |publisher=Majdanek Museum |work=Introduction |year=2014 |access-date=30 July 2014 |author=Wojciech Lenarczyk, Dariusz Libionka |format=PDF file, direct download 91.6 KB |pages=15–16 |quote=Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz, Obóz koncentracyjny i zagłady Majdanek, „Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich” 1948.}}

File:Fotothek df pk 0000125 002.jpg upon liberation, inside an already dismantled building]]

Although his research was further revised by Holocaust scholars, Łukaszkiewicz was the first Polish scientist to challenge the evidence for the prosecution submitted in 1946 by the Soviets at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg.{{cite web | url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_Vol-VII.pdf | title=Trial of the Major War Criminals | publisher=The International Military Tribunal | work=Afternoon Session: 19 February 1946 | date=14 November 1945 – 1 October 1946 |location=Nuremberg | access-date=5 August 2014 | author=Mr. Counsellor Smirnov | at=590 of current document | quote=The Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission has ascertained that during the 4 years' existence of the extermination camp at Maidanek the Hitlerite hangmen, following the direct order of their criminal government, exterminated by mass shooting and mass killing in gas chambers approximately 1.5 million persons... | id=Volume VII Official Text in the English Language Published at Nurembers, Germany, 1947. [https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_major-war-criminals.html Resources.]}} The completely unrealistic estimate of 1.5 million people murdered at the Majdanek concentration camp was based on the theoretical capacity of Majdanek coke-fueled crematoria. This number claimed by the Soviet-led Special Commission was lowered by Łukaszkiewicz by over one million victims based on his own evidence, down to 360,000 which – at that particular time – constituted a challenge requiring a substantial amount of personal integrity.

• "Obóz zagłady Treblinka" (The Extermination Camp Treblinka) by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz, a thirty-page article in: Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, I, 1946.{{cite web |url=http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2008177420/ |title=Łukaszkiewicz, Zdzisław |publisher=OCLC Online Computer Library Center |work=WorldCat Identities |year=2010 |access-date=29 July 2014}}
• Obóz straceń w Treblince by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz (book), published by Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1946 in Polish, 5 editions, {{OCLC|79768503}}
• Hitlerowskie obozy koncentracyjne (Nazi Concentration Camps) by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz (book), published by Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 1955 in Polish, 3 editions {{OCLC|659792693}}  {{ISSN|0519-9034}} {{cite web |url=http://150.254.171.194/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=140P55D60632B.697621&profile=bu-uam&source=~!buam&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!756569~!0&ri=1&aspect=subtab14&menu=search&ipp=40&spp=20&staffonly=&term=%C5%81ukaszkiewicz%2C+Zdzis%C5%82aw.&index=.AW&uindex=&aspect=subtab14&menu=search&ri=1#focus |title=BU Katalog on-line |publisher=Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu |work=Łukaszkiewicz, Zdzisław (1955), Hitlerowskie obozy koncentracyjne |year=2014 |access-date=30 July 2014}}
• Regulamin czynności sądów wojewódzkich i powiatowych w sprawach cywilnych i karnych by Z. Łukaszkiewicz with Tadeusz Górski; Janusz Pietrzykowski [u.a.] (book), 1 edition published in 1956 in Polish
• Chuligaństwo by Z. Łukaszkiewicz with J. Sawicki, G. Auscaler, A. Pawełczyńska, T. Cyprian. Ed. by J. Sawicki (book), 1 edition published in 1956 in Polish
• Obóz koncentracyjny i zagłady Majdanek by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz (book), Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich” 1948, vol. 4, in Polish, {{OCLC|42357118}}

• Majdanek trials

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• Ghetto Fighters' House, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070225110507/http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_multimedia/GFH/0000013416/0000013416_1_web.jpg Death camp forensic investigations (1), Poland] (historic photograph), Internet Archive 2007.

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Category:20th-century Polish judges

Category:20th-century Polish historians

Category:Polish male non-fiction writers

Category:Date of birth unknown

Category:Date of death unknown

Category:Historians of the Holocaust in Poland