News

Last Saturday, 7 September, as part of the European Heritage Days’ theme "Routes, Networks and Connections", a unique event called On the trail of Memory took place in Kluczbork. One of the highlights of the programme was a lecture delivered by Dr. Piotr Stanek, head of the CMJW’s Research Department, who presented the history of the POW camps located in the Kluczbork area - Oflag VIII A, Ilag VIII/Z Kreuzburg and Stalag Luft 7 Bankau.

During the lecture, which took place at the Jan Dzierżon Museum and was organised by the Kluczbork-based Klucz do Rozwoju Association, Dr. Piotr Stanek told the audience about the fate of Polish and French officers and civilians, mainly British, who were held in an oflag established in the monumental, classicist building of the former Poorhouse in Kluczbork (located near the museum).

The meeting at the museum did not end with the theoretical part. After the lecture, the attendees went for a walk to see the building. Then they went on a bicycle trip to the site of the former airmen's camp in Bąków where Dr. Piotr Stanek presented detailed information about Stalag Luft 7 Bankau, a camp for British Royal Air Force airmen and Soviet prisoners-of-war.

The On the trail of Memory event, also attended by Museum Director Dr. Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska, not only helped the attendees to find out more about local history and important events connected to Kluczbork and its surroundings, but - thanks to the visit to the sites associated with the former prisoner-of-war camps - also provided an opportunity for gestures of remembrance: cleaning up the memorial site and lighting a symbolic candle.