Stepping into History - A Damaged Camouflage Jacket from the Uprising Found in Hospital Ruins
Thursday marks the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. This was the largest battle in the history of Polish arms, involving not only soldiers of the uprising units but also civilians. On August 1st, a 63-day struggle for freedom began. The Warsaw Uprising was one of the most significant events of the war period and had a profound impact on the history of Poland.
As part of the ‘Stepping into History’ series, we invite you on August 1st (Thursday) at 4:00 PM to level -1, where we will be showcasing a unique exhibit on loan from the family collection of Mrs. Barbara Goeldner-Soszyńska. It is a damaged camouflage jacket, known as a ‘panther’, found in the ruins of the hospital at 7 Długa Street in Warsaw.
During the Warsaw Uprising, insurgents used captured German uniforms and weapons. One of the most distinctive items of insurgent clothing was the German camouflage jacket, mainly sourced from captured warehouses in the Stawki area. After the war, Stanisław Soszyński found a fire-damaged and blood-stained ‘panther’ jacket in the ruins of the Raczyński Palace at 7 Długa Street. On September 2nd, 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans murdered about 200 seriously wounded insurgents in the hospital located in the basement of this building, as they could not be evacuated from the Old Town.
Insurgents from the ‘Pięść’ Battalion, wearing captured German ‘panther’ jackets, evacuate the wounded Corporal Cadet Adam Grymaszewski ‘Jastrząb’ - Warsaw, August 1944, photo by Stefan Bałuk, from the collection of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
Stanisław Soszyński (1931–2017) was a 13-year-old participant in the Warsaw Uprising, later an artist, Varsovian historian, guardian of the memory of pre-war Warsaw and the Warsaw Uprising, and a friend of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.
See below a photo report from the meeting as part of the "Stepping into History" series, which took place on August 1 on level -1 of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk:
