LOCATION: LEVEL -3
TIME: COMPLETED
The exhibition is part of a nationwide project coordinated by the National Museum in Poznań. Its main goal is to present to a wide audience silver memorabilia collected from within Polish society by the Polish authorities as part of a nationwide collection conducted in the years 1936-1939 under the National Defense Fund (FON).
Poles generously contributed to it both in cash and in kind – real estate, valuables, and even grain and livestock. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, unused in-kind donations were transported abroad. At the Polish embassy in Bucharest, they were divided into silver and gold parts. 61 crates with silver objects were transported from Romania to France, where they survived World War II, first in the vault of the branch of the Bank of France in Marseille, and after the war, they were moved to Toulouse.
Poland regained the silver from the National Defense Fund in 1976. Between 1978 and 1988, a team of employees at the National Museum in Poznań inventoried over 18,000 items. For this reason, and also as a symbolic compensation for wartime losses in the collections, by a decision from the custodian of the treasure, the Ministry of Culture and Art, the Museum acquired ownership of 1,840 objects.
On January 23rd, 2023, the remaining over 16,000 items from the National Defense Fund's silver collection were handed over to the National Museum in Poznań. Currently, as part of the project "Do not waste independence. Silver from the National Defense Fund," exhibitions of objects from this collection are presented in museums and cultural institutions throughout Poland.
The exhibition at level -3 of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk will be available from June 6th to September 17th, 2023.
Honorary patronage by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Prof. Dr. Hab. Piotr Gliński.
Gallery
