German occupation of the San River
1.09.2019- 26.05.2020, outdoor exhibition German Occupation of the San River,1939-1944. 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
place: square next to the Inter-University Library in Stalowa Wola, 10 Popiełuszki St.
The exhibition, prepared in connection with the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, is the first presentation of never-before-published photographs from the time of the German occupation of the San River. The main axis of the exhibition consists of materials documenting the economic exploitation of the San River region. Almost all elements of the General Government’s occupation policy were concentrated here, as in a lens. The region provided food and cheap labor, and everything was subordinated to German war industry. The Stalowa Wola South Works, taken over by the Hermann Göring Works concern, produced, among other things, the German army’s most famous cannon, the Flak 8.8 cm. The chemical plants in Sarzyna were turned into massive military warehouses and a riding school for cavalry horses. In Turbi the Germans built an airfield, serving first the needs of the Stalowa Wola factory and then the Luftwaffe. New railroads were built, bridges blown up by the Polish army were rebuilt, and roads were repaired. For all the work, the Germans used forced laborers, including Jews. These are just some of the topics presented. The five years of wartime occupation were marked by terror, executions and roundups.
The criminal machinery of persecution and economic exploitation was made possible by the soldiers stationed there, the secret police and the work of hundreds of officials and officers of various services employed by the Third Reich.
The exhibition will also show what the occupiers did when they were not on duty or at work, what their quarters and barracks looked like, how they celebrated holidays and even carnivals in Poland. We get a glimpse of a world closed and inaccessible to “ordinary” people. Photographs of jubilant Germans, butrogantly marching through a Stalowa Wola neighborhood, are juxtaposed with places of execution. The images captured then indicate very clearly who was the victim and who was the executioner.
The photos presented at the exhibition come mainly from the albums of anonymous Wehrmacht soldiers who ended up on the Eastern Front. In this case, the photographs not only complement the rich literature on the subject of World War II in the region. Combined with the narrative, they bring the viewer closer to the historical truth. They represent the fulfillment of a historian’s dream “to see with his own eyes.”
At the same time, the exhibition is our response to the needs communicated by contemporary history scholars alarming that awareness of the brutal nature of German occupation policy in Poland is fading. Many historians, who after 1989, unhindered by the system, mainly engaged in the study of Soviet crimes, at the same time considered that the history of the German occupation had been sufficiently researched during the communist era.
Curator: Aneta Garanty
Comments on the photographs in German were read and translated by Dr. Slawomir Kułacz (University of Gdansk)
