"Anyone entering the first room of the exhibition "Our Boys" in the Main Town Hall branch of the Museum of Gdansk is greeted by dozens of photos showing young men in the uniform of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Some of the men in the photos are smiling; some look extremely serious; some look sad."
"Right-wing conservatives in Poland reacted to the opening of the exhibition in mid-July with hostility and indignation. Poland's then president, Andrzej Duda, posted on X that to portray soldiers of the Third Reich as "ours" was both a "historical falsehood" and a "moral provocation." "As a nation, the Poles were victims of German occupation and German terror, not perpetrators or participants," said Duda."
"The Gdansk exhibition addresses the subject of Polish citizens who served in Adolf Hitler's army a matter that was long considered taboo in Poland and was for decades not spoken about, and even concealed. 'These were people from here: our boys, in other words. Their families still live here to this day,' explains the museum."
An exhibition in the Main Town Hall branch of the Museum of Gdansk displays dozens of photographs of young men from Nazi-occupied Poland wearing Wehrmacht uniforms. The images document Polish citizens who served in Adolf Hitler's army, a subject long considered taboo, concealed, and rarely spoken about in Poland. The exhibition title "Our Boys" was taken from a similar show in Luxembourg. Museum staff note that these were local people and that their families still live in the area. The July opening prompted hostile reactions from right-wing conservatives and political leaders who condemned portraying Wehrmacht soldiers as 'ours.'
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]