Our new exhibition "The Wola Massacre in Warsaw,
05.08.1944. An unpunished crime" documents one of the biggest war crimes committed
in twentieth-century Europe which one no one was ever held accountable for.
05.08.1944. An unpunished crime" documents one of the biggest war crimes committed
in twentieth-century Europe which one no one was ever held accountable for.
Image gallery
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It will be opened until 15 October 2023 including an extensive programme accompanying the exhibition.
In August 1944 the Polish Home Army rose up in Warsaw against the German occupation.
One of the commanders charged with putting down the uprising was SS General Heinz Reinefarth. Under his command, German soldiers and police units killed tens of thousands of men, women and children in the Wola district. After the war, Reinefarth lived on Sylt and was elected mayor of Westerland as well as a member of the local parliament in Schleswig-Holstein. He was never brought to justice.
The massacre began at a very early stage of the Warsaw Uprising. After the 20,000-strong Warsaw garrison initially found it very difficult to stand up to the insurgents, the commander-in-chief of the SS and police guard Gruppenführer Reinefarth received a momentous order from Himmler on the afternoon of 3 August 1944. He was to form a fighting force from the available forces of the Wehrmacht, the police and the SS to put down the Warsaw Uprising.
Partner institutions:
Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, Wola Cultural Centre and Wawelberg Colony.
The exhibition is based on many years of research by the director of the Berlin Branch Hanna Radziejowska and is powered by the Pilecki Institute's extensive archive programme.
It was previously shown in the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, and now it can finally be seen in an expanded version in Berlin: With video recordings of witness statements and a new integral station of the exhibition presenting our computer game "The Shadow Hunters".
