New Museum: Poland Vs. History
Timothy Snyder, whose “Bloodlands” may be the most eye-opening account of World War II atrocities I’ve ever read, writes in the New York Review about the halted progress of a new museum about the war in Gdansk, Poland. ‘The current Polish government, led by the conservative Law and Justice party, now seems determined to cancel the museum, on the grounds that it does not express “the Polish point of view.†In his explanation, Snyder cites a fact that I always forget when I’m reading about the conflict: ‘After Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, German forces deliberately starved three million Soviet prisoners of war.’ I had to re-read that sentence several times before its atrocity — and yes, atrocities were committed on all sides, but some dwarf others in scale — started to hit me. [photo: Michal Fludra]
