New Polish Museum on Nazi Massacres

[henryk]

http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/2339 ... [quote]New Polish museum sheds light on Nazi massacres
PR dla Zagranicy Roberto Galea 22.12.2015 14:34
A new museum has opened its doors in Wejherowo, northern Poland, to commemorate the first genocide committed by the Nazis during World War II.
Museum Director Teresa Patsidis (L), Deputy Culture Minister Jarosław Sellin (C) during the official opening of the museum. Photo: mkidn.gov.pl

During a press conference to announce the opening of the Piaśnica Museum, Deputy Culture Minister Jarosław Sellin said that such a centre is “an extremely important institution because few Poles – not to mention foreigners – know that the first genocide during World War II was committed in Pomerania [now in northern Poland]”.
“The victims were mainly Polish, Pomeranian and Kashubian intelligentsia and the elite of the Polish state,” Sellin said.
The new museum will conduct research, organise exhibitions and serve as an educational centre. It is estimated that some 12,000-14,000 people lost their lives in massacres carried out by the Nazis between the autumn of 1939 and the spring of 1940. (rg/pk)[/quote]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres ... [quote]The massacres in Piaśnica were a set of mass executions carried out by Germans, during World War II, between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940 in Piaśnica Wielka (Groß Piasnitz) in the Darzlubska Wilderness near Wejherowo. The exact number of people murdered is unknown, but estimates range between 12,000 and 14,000 victims. Most of them were Polish intellectuals from Gdańsk Pomerania, but Poles, Jews, Czechs and German inmates from mental hospitals from General Government and the Third Reich were also murdered. After the Stutthof concentration camp, Piaśnica was the largest site of killings of Polish civilians in Pomerania by the Germans, and for this reason is sometimes referred to as the "second" or "Pomeranian" Katyn.[1] It was the first large scale Nazi atrocity in occupied Poland.[2][/quote]

[Makarov]

I will visit the massacre site on January the 2:nd, hopefully the museum is open that day.

[henryk]

I presume their website is in preparation.
http://stutthof.org/node/812
Google translation, slightly polished:

Opening of Muzeum Piaśnickie w Wejherowie
In Pomerania, a new cultural institution. It is the branch of the Stutthof Museum - Museum Piasnica in Wejherowo. The facility is to commemorate and disseminate knowledge in Poland and abroad for Piasnica as the first mass genocide perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II in the absence of hostilities, as well as other places murders of Polish intelligentsia in Pomerania.

Piasnica Museum will have its headquarters in the "Villa Musica" in Wejherowo Street, near ul. Ofiar Piaśnicy 6. It is historically associated with the tragic events of Piasnica. The house was built in the 20s of the last century Francis Panek, who died a few years before World War II doctor and a local activist. In Piaśnicy killed were two of his daughters - teacher: Stanislaw and Kazimiera.
In 1939 the villa was occupied by the Germans. They arranged the local Gestapo headquarters here: it is here, among others, Organization management murders in Piasnica, in the basement of the house were stored clothing and other items stolen from the victims.
Piasnica Museum in Wejherowo was founded on December 16, 2015. As a branch of the Museum Stutthof. Its director is Teresa Patsidis.

* * * *

Mass executions in Piasnica began in late October 1939 and continued until the beginning of April 1940 were part of the so-called. the "intelligence" and their contractors were SS officers and members of the paramilitary Selbstschutz. Historians estimate that victims of genocide in the woods piaśnickich fell from 12 thousand. up to 14 thousand. humans. Among the victims were mainly representatives of the Polish intelligentsia of Gdansk Pomerania. Piaśnica is the largest after the Stutthof place of execution of the Polish population in Pomerania during World War II.

In the place of murder is symbolic cemetery with crosses indicating the mass graves. In Wejherowie, where off of the main road in the direction of the cemetery, stood the symbolic Brama Piaśnicka. "Villa Musica" is located opposite Brama Piaśnicka.

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=54.60 ... 4&z=17&m=b
Villa Musica is across from the railroad station near the interchange. The circle in front is Brama Piaśnicka.