As many as 40 boards are going to be displayed in ul Świdnicka, and the photographs will be available to the public from 1 to 18 May to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. You are going to see unique photographs which represent the war-ravaged Wroclaw in 1945 and which are set against contemporary photos taken in the same locations! This is a unique occasion to see archive photographs by Henryk Makarewicz, Rudolf Jagusch, Krystyna Gorazdowsks, Bronisław Kupiec, Jan Bułhak, Marian Idziński and Adama Czelny. The contemporary section was in turn created by Stanisław Klimek, and the captions were provided by Marzena Smolak.
"The Battle of Wroclaw in 1945 lasted 80 days, from 17 February to 6 May. The Festung Breslau defended the longest out of all fortresses of the Third Reich. It surrendered four days after the collapse of Berlin. The last three months of the war proved to be the most tragic in a thousand-year history of the city, The fanatical defence of the Festung Breslay and a fierce battle against the attacking Red Army turned the beautiful and historic city into a heap of rubble. The areas to the south and north of the city were nearly literally razed to the ground. The cultural legacy of many generations, including art collections, libraries and archives, was ravaged in the fires. So were the goods and chattels of the residents of the city" writes the exhibition's curator Marzena Smolak.
The shifting of the European borders, which was executed under the provisions of the Jalta and the Potsdam Treaties resulted in a nearly complete change in the make-up of Wroclaw's population. The German residents had been relocated by the end of 1947. Their homes were taken by Polish people coming from all regions of Poland, including the eastern part, which was incorporated into the Soviet Union after World War II. One of the first Polish citizens who arrived in Wroclaw was Henryk Makarewicz (born in 1917 in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, died in 1984 in Krakoów). He came to Wroclaw on 14 April 1945 with two other photographers, Marian Apostolski and Adama Drozdowski, to join the pioneering team of the first Polish Mayor of Wroclaw Bolesław Drobner, PhD. The group entered the besieged city as the fierce battle was still raging on. Henryk Makarewicz returned to Wroclaw in May with the Film Section of the Polish Army just after the Festung Breslau's surrender.
The exhibition is organised by: the City Museum of Wroclaw, the City Promotion Office at the Municipality Office of Wroclaw and the Via Nova publishing house.
