Pilecki Institute in Berlin from September 16

The Pilecki Institute office opens in Berlin and an exhibition is to be organised for its opening on September 16.

“The exhibition, directed at the German and more widely, western audience, talks about the Polish experience of the war,” said Hanna Radziejowska, co-curator of the exhibition. The exhibition is called “Volunteer to Auschwitz” and will be open until March 2020.

The Institute’s management expressed hope that the location of its facility in Berlin, near the Brandenburg Gate will ease cultural and scientific cooperation with German institutions.

The Brandenburger Tor at the blue hour (aut. AlterVista; CC BY-SA 3.0)

Together with the German Federal Archive, the Institute is currently digitising some 150,000 documents from the archives of the Gestapo and other Nazi police formations.

The Pilecki Institute’s mission covers interdisciplinary issues associated with the consequences of nazism and communism. It collects relevant documents, supports researchers and conducts educational activities.

The Institute is named after Witold Pilecki, a Polish WWII soldier who became a symbol of resistance to both Nazi and Communist occupation. Pilecki first fought against the Nazis in the September campaign, then purposely got himself locked in Auschwitz concentration camp where he organised a resistance effort, organised a brazen escape, fought in the Warsaw Uprising and, after the war, was killed by communists for allegedly working for the anti-communist government in exile.

Source: http://www.tvp.pl/

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