New museum to tell story of Poles as ‘precursors of unity’ in Europe: PM
Polish Radio 11.10.2018 13:30
Poland and its people were “precursors of unity” in Europe, the country’s prime minister declared during a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new Museum of Polish History in Warsaw on Thursday.
The country’s ruling conservatives said the new museum would tell the true story of Poland's often-bloody history.
“I am very happy that we will finally be able to tell our own wonderful story,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said as a long-stalled plan to build the museum officially got off the ground.
“Poland, like no other nation in the world, has nothing to be ashamed of,” he declared.
He added: “Poland has done a lot of good to Europe and the world as a whole … and this story, a true story of how we were troubadours of freedom in Europe and precursors of its unity, must be told in our own language.”
Morawiecki argued that the new museum of Polish history was needed because Poland was unable to “present the historical truth" for decades after World War II when—under Soviet domination—it found itself "on the margins of the world."
After communism fell in the country in 1989, Poland’s leaders either “did not want to” or “were unable to tell the true story of Poland” for various reasons, he said.
Morawiecki noted that the Polish people fought and shed blood on all fronts of World War II, and this was also when they created what he said was "the world's largest underground state."
Poland's struggle for "freedom, dignity and humanity" was at the same time "a struggle for the soul of the West,” Morawiecki told those gathered at the ceremony.
He added that the Polish people contributed immensely to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
He also said that the history of Poland made “great material” for a Hollywood movie to tell the story of a nation with "the most beautiful tradition of freedom in the Western world.”
Poland’s Deputy Culture Minister Jarosław Sellin said in April that, after years of delay under the country’s previous governments, the new Museum of Polish History in Warsaw was finally taking shape.
Sellin told public broadcaster Polish Radio at the time that the new facility, housed in the Polish capital’s historic Citadel complex, would be the largest museum nationwide in terms of exhibition space and the biggest single investment in Polish culture since World War II.
The new museum is expected to draw at least half a million visitors a year once its permanent exhibition opens in 2021, public broadcaster Polish Radio's IAR news agency reported on Thursday.
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Source: PAP/IAR
New Museum of Polish History in Warsaw
New Museum of Polish History in Warsaw
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