- Commemorative events.The German president apologizes to Poland on the anniversary of the start of World War II
- History: Poland, first victim of Nazi lightning
The recreation began with three huge explosions that caused fireballs to rise through the grove . He intended to emulate the roar that the initial bombardment of the Schleswig-Holstein ship had to cause when it opened fire shortly before five in the morning against the Polish positions at Westerplatte on September 1, 1939.
In a matter of seconds, the same Peninsula that attended what is considered the first fray of World War II was once again dominated by the rattling of machine-guns such as the CKM-30, the firing of rifles and the racing of the actors dressed in Polish and German army uniforms of the time.
" The Poles knew that the Germans were preparing for war and they did the same, " said an announcer through a loudspeaker.
The Polish plan itself established that this position - where about 200 soldiers faced a much higher German force - had to stop the offensive only during one day. He endured for a week.
"Westerplatte became a symbol of the resistance of the Poles. During the first days of the war the radio explained that they were still fighting and that served to keep hope," said Piotr Tortop, a 49-year-old insurance agent, dressed as a lieutenant of the Polish army of 1939.
Westerplatte and the rest of Poland on Sunday evoked the sad anniversary of the start of the world conflagration at a time when the memory of that black period is subject to a lively controversy in the European country, which the local opposition considers a Systematic effort of the Law and Justice Party (PIS) to appropriate collective memory by taking control of the museums that recreate those dates and promoting a narrative more in line with its ultra-nationalist ideology.
The controversy has intensified in recent weeks precisely after approval in parliament - where the PIS enjoys a comfortable majority - of a rule that gives the central government control of the symbolic Westerplatte enclave. Until now it depended on the mayor of Gdansk, where the liberal opposition holds the majority.
For the PIS it is about "restoring Westerplatte's dignity," as one of the videos broadcast by the World War II Museum, located in the nearby city of Gdansk, explains.
"It was a place that was full of garbage, it did not honor the great story that happened there," explains the historian and new director of the aforementioned center, Karol Nawrocki, who will also take care of the next museum that the government plans to build in that place.
The struggle around Westerplatte is just the last chapter of a long list of clashes between the representatives of the executive and his opponents on this issue, which reached its climax with the dispute over the center dedicated to the memory of the Second War World, one of the most significant buildings of its kind in all of Europe.
"The Polish point of view"
The project was promoted by the main political rival of the PIS, former Prime Minister Donald Tusk and in 2013, long before its inauguration, the strong man of Law and Justice, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, promised that if he returned to govern he would alter the exhibition to " express the Polish point of view. "
Built in the immediate vicinity of the Gdansk canals, the exhibition that houses the avant-garde building of the World War II Museum aims to summarize in 5,000 square meters the terror that personified that conflict.
However, the images that close the exhibition leave no room for the imagination about the message that the new people in charge of the site intend to convey.
After accusing the West of having "betrayed" them , the recording - which maintains the style of a comic loaded with scenes of Polish "heroism" - concludes with an explicit sentence: "Because we do not beg for freedom, we fight for it."
"It's like that, I don't know if it's good or bad, but we Poles have a genome that leads us to fight even against the most powerful enemies," Nawrocki proclaims.
The epic tone of the production contrasts with that shown in that same room until October 2017. Then, visitors could attend a succession of scenes that collected various recent wars under one of the most emblematic songs for the movement contrary to the from Vietnam: "The House of the Rising Sun" of the group The Animals .
"We wanted visitors to leave with that message, that the war is diabolical but part of the human being and that is why we have to be vigilant, " explains historian Janusz Marszalec, who until June 2017 was part of the Museum staff.
Enhance Patriotism
"Yes, the war is terrible, but this is a museum that was built with the taxes of the Poles and the least that these taxpayers expect is to be able to see their heroes," replies the institution's current spokesman, Alexander Mastowski.
The replacement of the video prepared by the direction that sponsored the opening of the Museum is part of the many changes that Nawrocki, a historian close to the Law and Justice Party, has introduced, replacing the previous head, Pawel Machcewicz, a few weeks after the Sala will open its doors to the public in early 2017.
Nawrocki has tried to modify the spirit of an exhibition that he believes did not sufficiently affect the "heroism" of the Poles during those years.
Suddenly, in the halls where only the atrocious suffering that the Polish Jews had to face was reflected, the role of the religious Maximiliano Kolbe, a Franciscan who offered to die in Auschwitz instead of another prisoner, or of the Ulma, was enhanced. Polish family that hid 8 Jews during the German occupation and was executed for it.
"I am in favor of the museums teaching patriotism. After the fall of communism the communist elites remained present in Polish institutions and that prevented the historical truth from being known," the director argues in a conversation with this newspaper.
For the PIS, the past seems to be a vital tool to influence the present. That is why the controversy surrounding museums is part of a more ambitious and systematic effort than their critics say is an exercise in historical revisionism that has led them to vilify intellectuals like Jan Gross - the well-known historian who denounced participation of Poles in actions as creepy as the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne-, try to ban by law the use of the expression "Polish concentration camps" or recover the figure of the controversial "cursed soldiers", who continued to fight against the established communist regime in Poland by the Soviet Union after 1945, which many experts accuse of notable and bloody excesses against the civilian population.
Last year, nationalist Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki sparked a controversial controversy - which reached a special resonance in Israel - by paying tribute to the so-called Holy Cross Mountain Brigade, a group of the Polish resistance of ultra-right ideology accused of collaborating with the German army in the last phase of the war.
"In all the armies there are elements that do not obey the orders, but that does not prevent us from remaining heroes who fought for the independence of the country against communism," says Nawrocki, who has also been one of the architects of the movement of Exaltation of the "cursed soldiers."
It is, in the words of President Andrzej Duda , to foster an "aggressive historical policy." "Right now, throughout Europe, history is part of politics," Nawrocki seconded.
Sitting on one of the many terraces of this evocative city, Janusz Marszalec, believes that the historical narrative defended by the ultra-nationalist government is a true "revolution aimed at educating a new citizen according to his ideas, as was the case with totalitarian regimes." "Museum control is part of this policy," he adds.
"They are trying to control the history museum"
"After what has happened in Gdansk they are trying to control the history museum of the Polish Jews in Warsaw and that of the Solidarity movement ," he says.
Marszalec is part of the large group of experts who had to leave the World War II Museum after the arrival of Nawrocki. "There are only three people left in a score," he adds.
According to Rafal Wnuk, another well-known local historian, the PIS project dates back to 2004, when the late Lech Kaczynski - brother of the current leader of the Party and then mayor of the Polish capital - sponsored the opening of the Warsaw Uprising Museum from 1944.
"It was a great success and from that moment on, history was a central axis of the PIS policy . Think that every year these enclosures receive the sight of hundreds of thousands of people," he says.
"Willing to fight for the homeland"
" This government has an authoritarian agenda and they believe that the Poles have to leave a museum dedicated to World War II thinking, not that wars are terrible, but proud and willing to fight for the homeland," said Pawel Machcewicz.
Installed in an office surrounded by flags and portraits of Polish heroes, Jerzy Grzywacz is one of those people who do not need to be reminded of the country's recent history. He embodies it himself.
The nine decades of life he treasures have not prevented him from forgetting the days of 1939, when he was a child he went with his friends "to see Westerplatte's fighting and explosions from the port". "The defeat was a real shock. I thought it was impossible for us to lose the war," he says.
Later, while still a teenager, the president of the Association of Former Fighters of the National Army participated as "mail" of the insurgents who fought in Warsaw during the 1944 uprising. "It is necessary that the West remember what the Poles suffered, but I saddens this conflict around history. The government claims to be anti-communist, but sometimes it wants to control everything, as the communists did, "he says.
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