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Our temporary exhibition ‘The End and the Beginning. The Warsaw insurgents in German captivity’ will be presented in the T. Kościuszko Park in Pruszków, near Warsaw, until 30^th November. It provided a good opportunity for our Museum workers to pay a personal visit there with a themed lecture.

On Saturday 25 November, the Museum of Dulag 121 in Pruszków was visited by the director of the CMJW Dr. Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska and Dr. Piotr Stanek, head of the Research Department and also the author of the exhibition devoted to the POW epilogue of the Warsaw Uprising. The purpose of the visit was to present the activities of our Museum, especially in the context of the fate of Warsaw insurgents who, after the end of the fighting in the capital, were moved around by the Germans and went through, among others, the transit camp in Pruszków or Stalag 344 Lamsdorf.

That was, for example, in the case of Miron Białoszewski who left Warsaw with a large group of civilians, and who, in his highly acclaimed ‘Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising’, described in a laconic convention typical of his memoir, the circumstances of getting to Dulag 121: “Maybe jump out of the train on the way from Pruszków to escape. We were supposed to be hopped over the Reich. The Germans made an impression of being well-informed, organised, utterly resolute in the face of opposition. Completely. And moreover, they were surprised to see all of us. That so many of us were leaving alive. After all, so many had died […] In Pruszków there was already a crush. Alighting. A lot of calling, getting out of, alighting from, the train. There were not only a lot of us. A lot of those who were waiting too. Germans. [...] We - the transport - got to the factory floor. A human conveyor-belt”.

The next stop in Miron Białoszewski's post-insurgency journey was Lamsdorf, which paradoxically, after the trauma of the uprising, made a relatively good impression on the poet and was remembered as: "...Landscape. The first real one. Warm. With no explosions". This does not change the fact that Białoszewski had to cope in Stalag 344 Lamsdorf with the same problems as the other Polish prisoners-of-war. It is worth noting that thanks to his successful escape, he managed to avoid deportation deep into the Third Reich.

We would like to remind you that our exhibition is still on display in Pruszków until the end of the month, after which it will travel to the Pilecki Family House Museum in Ostrów Mazowiecka. We therefore invite the people of Mazovia to pay a visit to the museum!

Coverage of the meeting in the Museum of Dulag 121 can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO0BTcSKshU

Photo: The Museum of Dulag 121.