Temporary memorial to Polish victims of Nazi-German occupation to be unveiled in Berlin

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Germany’s culture minister, Claudia Roth, has announced that a temporary memorial to Polish victims of the German-Nazi occupation of World War Two will be unveiled in Berlin next month.

Roth also apologised for the fact that it is taking so long to establish a planned permanent memorial and admitted that there is too little knowledge in Germany of the atrocities committed against Poles during the war.

Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, first approved plans to create a memorial honouring Polish victims in November 2020. The measure received support from all political parties apart from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

However, not until August 2023 did Roth’s culture ministry outline plans for the memorial, which is to take the form of a “Polish-German House commemorating the suffering that took place in Poland in the years 1939-1945, as well as the cruel death of over five million Polish citizens, including approximately three million Jews”.

While focusing on wartime atrocities, the planned Polish-German House is also intended to show historical ties before and after the war, including Germany’s role in the partitions of Poland from the late 18th to early 20th century, the migration of Poles to German lands, and Poland’s integration into the EU and NATO.

The idea finally received approval from the German government in June 2024. After that, the project passed back to the Bundestag for implementation.

On Tuesday this week, during a visit to Warsaw, Roth handed her Polish counterpart, Hanna Wróblewska, an invitation to attend the unveiling next month of a temporary memorial that will be in place until the final one is complete, reports German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

It will be located at the site of the former Kroll Opera House, which functioned as the assembly hall of the Reichstag – Germany’s parliament – from 1933 to 1942. It was there, on 1 September 1939, that Adolf Hitler announced the invasion of Poland.

Speaking later to Deutsche Welle, Roth confirmed that the unveiling was being planned for 7 May, but said that the date would be dependent upon ongoing efforts to form a new German coalition government.

“I am very sorry that it is taking so long [to establish the memorial],” said Roth. “The idea of ​​a Polish-German House is a good [one]….combining the memory of the victims with documentation and dialogue between societies.”

In the meantime, “of course a place of remembrance is needed, where people can express their mourning, lay flowers, commemorate the dead”, she added. “I understood that we cannot wait until the Polish-German House is built, and first we should quickly erect a temporary monument.”

Roth, who will leave office once the new government is formed, said that it is important for Germany “to focus on the politics of memory, not only on the Holocaust, but also on the fate of non-Jewish Poles”.

“In Germany, too little is known about the scale of the crimes committed by Germans against millions of Poles,” said the minister. “Dealing with the memory of the past is a contribution to strengthening trust and cooperation…A strong Europe is needed, and Polish-German relations are its foundation.”

The minister also expressed support for the idea of Germany helping finance memorial sites relating to German-Nazi crimes located in today’s Poland, and for Germany seeking to return cultural assets, such as works of art, that were looted from Poland during the war.

Roth also hailed the dramatic improvement in Polish-German relations since the current Polish government – a broad coalition led by former European Council President Donald Tusk – replaced the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) administration in December 2023.

The difference is “like night and day”, said Roth. “PiS treated Germany as an enemy…After the change of government in Poland, the climate changed dramatically. Trusting and constructive cooperation became possible…The flagship project is the Polish-German House.”

Last month, France’s ambassador to Poland likewise said that Franco-Polish relations have gone “from darkness to light” since Tusk’s coalition replaced PiS, which had difficult relations with the EU and western European member states.

Almost six million Polish civilians – around half of them Polish Jews – are estimated to have died as a result of the war. That represents 17% of Poland’s pre-war population, which is the highest proportional death toll of any country during the Second World War.

The German occupiers also laid waste to many Polish cities – including the capital, Warsaw, which saw around 85% of its buildings destroyed – and plundered or destroyed much of Poland’s cultural heritage.

That painful legacy continues to cause tensions today, in particular under the rule of the PiS government, which launched a bid to obtain war reparations from Germany. Berlin argues that there is no legal basis for those claims.

Tusk’s government has sought to improve relations with Germany. However, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has still called on Berlin to provide Poland with some form of compensation for the war and accused Germans of having “memory gaps”.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Wikimedia Commons (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.