The German government unveiled plans for a ‘German-Polish House” on Tuesday, that will commemorate Polish World War II casualties and provide information on Germany’s cruel 1939–1945 occupation of its neighbor.
Plans for the documentation center wurden unveiled by German Culture Minister Claudia Roth at the Chancellery.
They call for it to educate visitors about history, serve as a meeting place for Germans and Poles and others, and also serve as a memorial with a “striking artistic element”. According to the concept, “the proposed German-Polish House will commemorate Poland’s Suffering between 1939 and 1945, and the violent deaths of over 5 million Polish citizens, including roughly 3 million Jewish children, women, and men.”
In addition to providing knowledge about actual acts of warfare, it will also depict daily life during Germany’s “six years of occupation terror” and the armed resistance of Polish civilians, notably the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Jews in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
The German Parliament approved the initiative over three years ago. The German government was urged in a resolution supported by the majority of the parties to „create a place in a prominent location in Berlin that, in the context of the special German-Polish relationship, is dedicated to the Polish victims of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Poland.“
The former Kroll Opera site near the German Reichstag and the Chancellery was suggested as a potential location on Tuesday by the culture minister.
When the Reichstag burned down in 1933, a month after Adolf Hitler took office, the Nazi parliament temporarily relocated to the Kroll Opera.
Hitler delivered his speech there on September 1, 1939, declaring Germany’s assault on Poland.
While the German occupation of Poland will be the main focus of the exhibition, other topics including forced labor, war captivity, deportations, and flight may also have a direct or indirect bearing on those years.
The permanent exhibition will include several sections on the Soviet occupation and Germany’s subsequent loss of its eastern provinces.
Additionally, it will highlight the historically uneven relationship between the two nations as well as the interaction between them today.
According to officials, the German-Polish-House’s development and construction will take several years.
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