The Gdansk Museum of the Second World War: A Polish political issue

On the edge of the restored old town of Danzig (Gdansk), a sharp-edged, rust-red foreign body rises four stories high into the Baltic sky - the color of the concrete slabs is a reference to the brick buildings of the rebuilt old Hanseatic and port city.

The horrors of war are exhibited on the third basement level of this building. A dark, winding, 5,000-square-meter exhibition explores the collapse of civilization during the Second World War, from which Central Europe suffered like no other region – even decades after the end of the war in 1945, 80 years ago.

Museum of the Second World War

Source: AGNIESZKA STAWROSIEJKO/MIIWS

"We are a very Central European museum," says museum director Rafal Wnuk in an interview with the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "Our goal is to add another narrative to the Second World War—the Central European perspective." He draws a conclusion and summarizes pointedly, with a large dose of bitter irony: "After 1945, we had two major narratives about the war in Europe. The Western perspective was that Hitler and the Nazis attacked the Western democracies. This war began for their troops in 1940, for the Americans in 1941, and the Allies defeated the beast in Berlin, and democracy prevailed." On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the story was told differently—from the Soviet perspective. "The war began in 1941 with a German attack on the Soviet Union. And after a terrible struggle with those Germans, the Red Army brought freedom to Europe."

None of these narratives fit Poland and the other countries of Central Europe, says Wnuk. Not only because the Second World War began for his country in 1939. "We have a more complicated view of our past. First of all, there were two villains: not just the Germans, but also the Soviets. Especially in the first part of the exhibition, we equated these two systems. And secondly, 1945 is not the beginning of the golden age. The problem continued into the 1980s."

Rafał Wnuk

Source: Agnieszka Strawrosiejko

The exhibition features a passageway separating the pre-war period from the wartime period. Visitors are flanked by swastika flags on the left wall and the hammer and sickle on the right. It symbolizes the Polish perspective from September 1939: 17 days after the German invasion, the Red Army also crossed the country's borders, as prepared by the Hitler-Stalin Pact. For German visitors, the almost complete equation of the two "villains" may take some getting used to, but for Poles, it is central to their understanding of history.

The museum presents war, annihilation, and the Holocaust from the perspective of ordinary people of diverse origins and nationalities. The expulsion of Germans after 1945 is also addressed, as are the resettlements and expulsions during the German occupation.

Weapons and technology fade into the background. The Soviet tank in the rubble of Warsaw stands there as a symbol, says Wnuk: "Not of liberation, but of the beginning of another occupation. The Soviet soldiers themselves had no freedom. They defeated the Germans and National Socialism, but they could not bring freedom."

And today? Poland and all of Europe have long since entered a new pre-war era, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last year. "I don't want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past," explained the 68-year-old from Gdansk. "We haven't experienced a situation like this since 1945" – the year the Second World War ended.

"We also want to convey this to our visitors," says Director Wnuk. "Eighty years after the end of the war, the threat of war is still present." He fears that the memory of the horrors of the greatest war of all time could fade into the background. "For today's young generation, the Second World War is already very distant. And perhaps that's why a new war is a real threat."

But there is something else to it, especially these days.

In Poland, history, especially that of the Second World War, is always part of current political debates. The museum has been at the center of such historical-political debates from its very beginning – and continues to do so today, and in a very concrete way: The portrait of its former director, Karol Nawrocki, is currently appearing on election posters throughout the country. The 42-year-old is running for president for the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. The first round of voting is on May 18, with a likely runoff election on June 1. The country is thus entering the heat of the election campaign.

In the museum, Nawrocki is remembered as the flattener, as the executive organ of the powerful men of the PiS, above all the gray party eminence Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Wnuk was part of the team that designed the permanent exhibition from the very beginning – and he, too, was fired by Nawrocki at the time. Wnuk has been director since 2024. The friendly, gray-bearded historian takes the time to tell the visitor from Germany the history of the museum. It's a success story. The museum welcomes half a million visitors per year, and the number of foreign guests is steadily growing – which is also due to the fact that the Baltic Sea city has increasingly developed into a tourist destination.

At the opening, this success was not foreseeable – quite the opposite. The decision to open the museum in the city where the German invasion of Poland began with the shelling of the Polish ammunition depot on Westerplatte on September 1, 1939, was made under the first Tusk government in 2008. Even before the exhibition was finished, the new government of Kaczynski's party delivered its verdict: "Even before they had seen anything, Kaczynski and the PiS were certain that the exhibition couldn't be heroic enough, not Polish enough – simply because it wasn't their exhibition," Wnuk recalls. "Two weeks after the opening, they kicked us all out."

Museum of the Second World War

Source: AGNIESZKA STAWROSIEJKO/MIIWS

Nawrocki took over – and changed not just details, but the entire thrust of the exhibition. Visitors were now bid farewell at the end with an "extremely nationalistic film with numerous military elements" – the title was "Indestructible." During Nawrocki's years, gigantic portraits of Polish heroes interrupted the rather fragmented and darkly toned permanent exhibition.

"For the PiS and Nawrocki, history is a sword in political battle. It's an extreme case of history being used for a specific narrative," criticizes Wnuk. "For them, history is something extremely important; it's a central point of their political thinking." Criticism and nuances are not welcome: "The Poles were the greatest heroes. Polish martyrdom is at the heart of everything." Wnuk, on the other hand, emphasizes the nuances of Polish history as well: "Our task is to reflect on the past in such a way that we can engage with the complex history and consider both its noble and shameful aspects."

When visitors emerge from the gloomy underground of the exhibition after two to three hours, they should have learned one thing above all, says Wnuk: "We want to show them that war is not a game. It's not a computer game. War is pure horror."