Liban Quarry
Trail of War
A disused limestone quarry in Podgórze. During the war the German penal camp "Liban" operated here. Today the area is protected as an ecological site; scenes of the film "Schindler's List" were also shot in the quarry.
History
Limestone was quarried here as early as the 14th century. The quarry was named after the Jewish entrepreneur Bernard Liban, whose company produced crushed stone, paving stones and lime. During the occupation the Germans set up a penal labour camp of the Construction Service (Baudienst) on the site, commonly known as Liban. On average it held about 400 prisoners, Poles and Ukrainians, and over the whole period of its existence more than 2,000; they worked in the quarry and at the lime kilns. In July 1944, as the front approached, the Ukrainian guard unit fled, and 146 prisoners escaped from the camp. On the night of 21 to 22 July, the camp commandant, with the help of Wehrmacht soldiers, murdered 20 of the 23 sick prisoners who had remained there. They were buried beneath the rock next to the residential building, where a small monument with a plaque was put up in 1948. Since August 2022 the area has been protected as an ecological site.
Did you know?
In 1993 the camp scenes for the film "Schindler's List" were shot on the site of the former camp. A film set was built for the occasion, and many parts of it have survived to this day.