Pilecki Institute

House of horror where secret police tortured hundreds to become museum in memory of victims

The building in the centre of Augustów in north-east Poland was used by the NKVD and the Communist secret police to hold and interrogate victims of the 1945 Augustów Roundups, known as the little Katyń. CC BY-SA 3.0 pl

The building in the centre of Augustów in north-east Poland was used by the NKVD and the Communist secret police to hold and interrogate victims of the 1945 Augustów Roundups, known as the little Katyń.

Polish avant-garde movie finally sees light of day

In this episode of The Debrief, we find out more about a Polish film dating from the 1930s which has just been unearthed at the German Bundesarchiv in Berlin.

Avant-garde masterpiece lost for 80 years to get world premiere at London Film Festival

Made in 1931 by surrealist Warsaw artists Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, the anti-fascist film ‘Europa’ was intended to reflect an atmosphere of horror and all-pervading societal decline as Hitler rose to power in Germany.

Extraordinary story behind discovery of 16th century Greek masterpiece in sleepy Polish village 60 years ago retold in fascinating new documentary

Through blending eye-witness commentary with cinema-style re-enactments, Katarzyna Kowalska’s documentary Polski El Greco (The Polish El Greco) which premieres Monday night, took four years to make and, says the director, “is the story of the struggle of two female inventors, unheard, unappreciated, who for many years no one wanted to take seriously. It is a story about the extraordinary passion of two young women who did not doubt for a moment what their intuition told them.”

WW2 aid to Jews one of finest pages in Polish history - PM

Aid to Jews in German-occupied Poland during World War Two is one of the finest pages in Polish history, PM Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a letter accompanying the Friday opening of an exhibition devoted to Poles executed by the Germans for helping Jews.

Polish history institute disappointed with German WWII ceremony

Polish issues were missing at German ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of World War II, PAP was told by Hanna Radziejowska, head of the Pilecki Institute in Berlin, a Polish government history facility.

“It was very cold and we had nothing to eat, and as a result the child died of cold and hunger”: testimonies show horror of Soviet deportations

To mark the 80th anniversary of Soviet deportations of Poles from occupied territories, newly released testimonies make harrowing reading.

List of over 3,000 Jews saved by WWII Polish diplomats published

The so-called Ładoś List, named after the head of Polish war time delegation in Switzerland, includes names of people who received fake Central American passports prepared by Polish diplomats in Bern as a way to escape the horrors of the Holocaust.

The past and the present

In an in-depth interview TFN's Patrick Ney talks with Wojciech Kozłowski, director of the Pilecki Institute, about Poland's complicated and painful past and its influence on the present.

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