A new exhibition titled “Our Boys” at Gdańsk’s Historical Museum, about Poles from the Pomerania region who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, has stirred fierce controversy.
The exhibition, based on personal letters, archival photographs, and local testimonies, seeks to shed light on the coerced German enlistment of Polish nationals under Nazi occupation
However, the display has provoked backlash from conservative politicians and historians.
“Portraying soldiers of the Third Reich as ‘ours’ is not only a historical falsehood but also a moral provocation, even if the photos of young men in the uniforms of Hitler’s army depict Poles forcibly conscripted into the German military,” wrote President Andrzej Duda.
The leader of the conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, called the exhibition “scandalous,” and said it intends to “blur the responsibility for the tragedy of World War II, and even attribute it to Poles.”
The Polish liberal government’s ministry of culture came to the defence of the exhibition, stating “the mission of institutions like museums is to present history thoroughly and comprehensively, often addressing difficult and previously silenced topics.”
