News - League of POW
The conference ‘Sites of former German prisoners-of-war camps…’ will change its format
The fourth edition of the ‘‘Nationwide Academic Conference ‘Sites of former German prisoners-of-war camps in Poland. Forgotten or Discovered?’” was the last one held in the well-known format. Ahead of us lay the beginning of work on an innovative proposal for meetings of a scientific-integrative nature - a regular international congress.
As we bid farewell to what is now a thing of the past, we would like to emphasise that the 4th edition of the Conference has fulfilled its task in an exemplary manner - the presentation of the state of knowledge about the history and the state of preservation of the sites of the former German prisoner-of-war camps in the territories now belonging to Poland. Both the audience and the speakers, who presented papers on the following camps: Stalag Luft IV Gross Tychow for Allied airmen (Associate Professor Michał Polak from the Koszalin University of Technology, Paweł Urbaniak from the Museum of Polish Arms in Kołobrzeg), Stalag III C Alt Drewitz (Dr. Przemysław Słowiński from the Jakub Paradyż Academy), Stalag XXI C Wollstein (Jarosław Rostkowski from the Regional Museum in Wolsztyn), Stalag II D Stargard ( Associate Professor D. Andrzej Ossowski from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Stalag 344 Lamsdorf (Dr. Dawid Kobiałka from the University of Łódź and Dr. Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska representing the Museum), and oflags: II B Arnswalde, II C Woldenberg, II D Gros Born (Professor Anna Matuchniak-Mystkowska from the University of Łódź), did very well.
In addition to the above-mentioned researchers, spoke: Adam Szpaderski, Professor of SWPS (University of Social Sciences and Humanities), and Magdalena Erdman, Head of the Division of Sites of National Remembrance in the Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and Memorial Sites. Both speakers focused on the future. The former spoke on the League and the groups of people which will integrate their activities around it, the latter on the cooperation of memorial sites with the MKiDN (Ministry of Culture and National Heritage).
The representative of the Ministry had another important role to play: it was she who awarded the medal ‘Guardian of Places of National Remembrance’ to Kinga Hartmann-Wóycicka, who is the chair of the Council of the Memory, Education, Culture Foundation and the European Centre Memory, Education, Culture, which takes care of the site of former Stalag VIII A Görlitz (Zgorzelec). The proposer of the motion to award the medal was the CMJW.