The World Briefly

August 31, 2023

Stretching Remembrance

Germany

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Germany plans to establish a “German-Polish House” in the capital that will serve as a memorial center for the Polish victims of World War II and chronicle Germany’s occupation of the country between 1939 and 1945, the Associated Press reported.

On Tuesday, the German government unveiled plans for the documentation center, which aims to “commemorate Poland’s suffering … and the violent deaths of more than 5 million Polish citizens, including some 3 million Jewish children, women and men.”

The German-Polish House will inform visitors about the six-year occupation and cover a variety of topics, such as forced labor, deportations, and displacement during that period. It will also touch on the daily lives of Poles under Nazi Germany’s occupation and the armed resistance against the invaders.

Some parts will target the Soviet occupation and Germany’s loss of eastern territories after the war, as well as address the present-day relationship between Berlin and Warsaw, which Poland has complained is characterized by inequalities.

German Culture Minister Claudia Roth suggested the former Kroll Opera near the German parliament as a potential site for the new center. The opera was used as a temporary seat by the Nazi parliament after the original legislature burned down shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.

It was at the Kroll Opera that Hitler announced Germany’s attack on Poland on Sep. 1, 1939.

The initiative plans to remedy a lack of recognition of the suffering of Poles during the war, something Poland has long asked for.

“The knowledge about the suffering of the Poles under German occupation, the knowledge about the millions killed, murdered, is far too often missing in Germany and in Europe, especially also among the younger generation,” Roth said.

This story originally appeared in the August 31, 2023 newsletter, Europe's Growing Force.