Two old family photos show the same group: a short-haired woman, a girl in a striped dress, and a man in uniform. But there is one difference between these well-preserved, sepia pictures: in one, the man wears a Wehrmacht uniform; in the other his military dress has been altered to conceal his wartime service.<\/p>\n
Donated to the Museum of Gda\u0144sk by the son of the girl in the striped dress, these images feature in a new exhibition about the mass forced conscriptions of Pomeranians into the German army. Consisting of photo albums, family heirlooms and oral testimonies of Poles who served in the Wehrmacht, the show asks whether someone can be both a victim of and a soldier for an aggressor, and suggests that confronting these complexities is vital to the national identity. Unsurprisingly, the exhibition has proved extremely controversial.<\/p>\n
Protests linked to the rightwing Law and Justice party were held outside the museum. Photograph: Agnieszka Grabowska<\/p>\n
After the German invasion of September 1939, some Polish territories, including Pomerania, Silesia and Greater Poland<\/a>, were directly incorporated into the Reich. The inhabitants of these regions were registered on the German People\u2019s List (Deutsche Volksliste), which classified the inhabitants of occupied territories. For men of conscription age, this often entailed compulsory service in the Wehrmacht. Those who refused to serve, deserted, or attempted to join the Polish armed forces or partisan groups were condemned to death and sent to concentration camps.<\/p>\n Historians estimate that between 400,000 and 450,000 citizens of the Second Polish Republic served in the Wehrmacht, more than the number who served in the Home Army, the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland \u2013 a painful reality which, the Gda\u0144sk museum contests, needs to be accepted to allow a more truthful reckoning with its past..<\/p>\n It is also a reality that not everyone has been willing to accept in the form presented. Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski, president of the rightwing Law and Justice party, argued on X that Our Boys blurs responsibility for the second world war<\/a> and even partially attributes it to Poles. Poland\u2019s former president, Andrzej Duda, called the exhibition\u2019s portrayal of conscripted Poles as \u201cours\u201d a moral provocation, regardless of the reality of forced service.<\/p>\n The museum said it opposed \u2018unfair and superficial assessments\u2019 of the exhibition. Photograph: Agnieszka Grabowska<\/p>\n Several Law and Justice-linked protests took place outside the museum, with critics accusing the exhibition of whitewashing history and blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator. They objected to the ambiguous title, which references a term used for Luxembourgers in similar situations (ons jongen).<\/p>\n The Warsaw Rising Museum, which is dedicated to the 1944 uprising, waded into the debate. A few days after the opening of the exhibition in Gdansk, it posted a picture of teenage insurgents on its Facebook profile, signed \u201cour boys\u201d. A heated discussion broke out about what \u201cours\u201d means to different people.<\/p>\n Andreas Kasperski, who donated the two photographs mentioned at the beginning of the article, says the backlash has made him fear for his mother\u2019s safety. \u201cI was afraid that, by going to see it, she might meet someone with extremely patriotic, confrontational views,\u201d he says. \u201cUntil a year ago, this would not have crossed my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Two versions of Poland\u2019s national story: Andreas Kasperski\u2019s grandfather with and without a Wehrmacht uniform. Photograph: Jakub Knera<\/p>\n The museum stood up to its critics. \u201cWe oppose unfair and superficial assessments,\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cWe regret the exhibition is being used for ad hoc political purposes.\u201d The title Our Boys, it said, was meant to acknowledge that these were individuals from Polish communities, not to glorify them.<\/p>\n The museum received support from the Kashubian-Pomeranian Association, which said in a statement that many critics \u201care not familiar with the realities of life in the annexed regions of Pomerania, Kashubia and Kociewie\u201d. According to the organisation, the exhibition was needed because it revealed \u201cthe complex fate of the inhabitants, who have been marginalised in the official policy of remembrance for years\u201d.<\/p>\n Roman Rakowski, a former Polish navy commander and member of the paramilitary Grey Ranks who turned 100 last year, wrote an open letter to the museum in response to the heated debate, in which he notes the harsh repression and forced displacement in Pomerania and calls for a remembrance of those who were forced to make hard choices. \u201cThese were our boys, boys of their families, forced into the enemy army to save loved ones,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt is easier to judge than to face such danger.\u201d<\/p>\n In Poland\u2019s borderland regions, identity was more ambiguous and uncertain. Photograph: Agnieszka Grabowska<\/p>\n The curator of Our Boys, Andrzej Hoja, says that while this complex chapter in Poland\u2019s wartime history is widely accepted in Pomerania, it was difficult to give personal stories a fair hearing at a national level, as the existence of the German People\u2019s List is not common knowledge and plays only a marginal role in the national curriculum. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret at the family level,\u201d he says. \u201cMany keep pictures from that era because they\u2019re the only photos they have. In the national debate, however, having a relative who was conscripted by force can make you an easy target. During the 2005 presidential campaign, it was revealed that Donald Tusk\u2019s Pomeranian grandfather served in the German army. Tusk, who is Poland\u2019s prime minister<\/a>, promptly lost that election.<\/p>\n Cezary Obracht-Prondzy\u0144ski, a history professor at the University of Gda\u0144sk, says the controversy over Our Boys exposes deep differences in how Poland\u2019s borderland and central regions perceive identity. These differences are rooted in post-second world war border changes and the Treaty of Versailles.<\/p>\n In cities such as Warsaw, Krak\u00f3w and Lublin, the Polish identity was clear \u2013 Polish was the primary language, and Catholicism unified the people. History in these places focused on uprisings and resistance to foreign oppressors, and the distinction between locals and outsiders was sharp. However, in regions such as Silesia, Kashubia, Warmia, Masuria, and the Eastern Borderlands, life was more mixed. People spoke several languages, practised different religions, and often had family members who served in different armies. Outsiders could still be neighbours or even family members.<\/p>\n Visitors to the exhibition Our Boys in Gdansk, Poland Photograph: Agnieszka Grabowska<\/p>\n People from the \u201ccore\u201d areas of Poland found it easier to follow a simple national story \u2013 us Poles against them. People from the borderlands, however, lived with more ambiguity and uncertainty. Polishness in Warsaw or Krakow in the 19th and 20th centuries was straightforward and clear, whereas in the borderlands it was complex, fragile and open to negotiation. After the war, the dominant narrative ignored the experience of people in those areas.<\/p>\n \u201cDo we have a right to our history, to our memory, to nuance and detail?\u201d asks Obracht-Prondzy\u0144ski. \u201cWithout this openness, a narrow and unifying model risks repeating dangerous patterns from Europe\u2019s past. The exhibition\u2019s debate should serve as both a lesson and a warning.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Boys is on at the Museum of Gda\u0144sk, Main Town Hall, until 10 May 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two old family photos show the same group: a short-haired woman, a girl in a striped dress, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-359794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115061922794982374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}