Politicians criticizing the exhibition “Our Boys” have shown that they have no understanding of the Germanization of Gdańsk and Pomerania residents during World War II, nor of their forced conscription into the Wehrmacht – assessed the correspondent of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He titled his moralizing article “Hitler’s Polish Soldiers.” “Well, no one expected how the Germans would use ‘Our Boys’,” mockingly note internet users.
The Warsaw correspondent of FAZ, Stefan Locke, began by citing critical reactions to the exhibition “Our Boys. Residents of Gdańsk Pomerania in the Army of the Third Reich,” held at the Gothic Hall of the Main Town Hall in Gdańsk. He quoted a post from President Andrzej Duda on Twitter, who called the exhibit a “moral provocation,” as well as a statement from PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who said the exhibition was an “attack on Polish sovereignty.” He also mentioned the negative opinion expressed by Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
A common feature of these three politicians, Locke wrote in his Tuesday dispatch from Gdańsk, is that they did not familiarize themselves with “the object of their outrage” and, relying only on what others said, used their positions and social media reach to widely publicize their “prejudices.”
“The reactions show that the critics have no understanding of the exhibition’s subject – the Germanization of Gdańsk and Pomerania residents during the German occupation of Poland in World War II and the forced conscription of local men into the Wehrmacht,” the author emphasized.
“This history is very different from that of Warsaw or Kraków and is not taught in Polish schools, which leads to such emotional reactions,” noted exhibition curator Andrzej Hoja, quoted by FAZ.
Locke describes the situation of Gdańsk and Pomerania residents after these territories were incorporated into the Third Reich in 1939 and the growing pressure to register on the Volksliste (German Nationality List). In the Danzig-West Prussia region, nearly one million people signed the Volksliste, and about 90,000 were drafted into the Wehrmacht. Including people from other German-occupied Polish territories, around 450,000 Poles served in Hitler’s army, according to FAZ. The article was bluntly titled: “Hitler’s Polish Soldiers.”
The FAZ correspondent also took the liberty of equating Polish and German attitudes toward the subject: “Meanwhile, at the nearby St. Dominic’s Fair, the approach to the history of the Third Reich is entirely uncontroversial: Nazi devotional items offered by traders – among them even an autograph of Heinrich Himmler – are being purchased side by side by both Germans and Poles (!),” Locke wrote.
Is this exactly what people were warning about? No one expected it…