LOCATION: LEVEL -3
TIME: COMPLETED
The exhibition sheds light on German crimes committed against the civilian population in the early days of the Warsaw Uprising and the unsuccessful attempts to hold the German commanding officer, Heinz Reinefarth, accountable. Between August 5th and 7th, 1944, following the orders of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, the Germans murdered between 15,000 and 60,000 people: men, women, and children.
The crimes were committed by soldiers and policemen under the command of Gruppenführer SS Heinz Reinefarth. After the war, he worked in West Germany as a lawyer, became the mayor of Westerland on the island of Sylt, and a deputy in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein. Despite many efforts, he was never successfully brought to justice.
The exhibition presents the course of events in Wola from the perspective of the district's residents. Maps and infographics allow the reconstruction of the detailed course of the crime and understanding its systematic nature. Complementing the exhibition are testimonies of survivors retrieved from both television archives and contemporary collections of oral history. The exhibition narrative is supplemented by reports and press comments from the 1950s and 1960s, illustrating public reactions to the Reinefarth case in both Communist Poland and West Germany.
The exhibition is free and open to visitors from August 3rd to September 15th, 2023.
Host: Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk
Organizers: Pilecki Institute, Warsaw Uprising Museum
Exhibition Partners: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, Pilecki Institute in Berlin, Wola Cultural Center
Gallery
