Art and social action ‘They were here’ – report

This year's action ‘They were here’ has been taken place for the second time. Now as part of the project entitled ‘Reverberations 1944. From Warsaw to Lamsdorf’. The purpose of the campaign is to popularise knowledge of the circumstances of the transports of the Warsaw insurgents from Ożarów to Lamsdorf, as well as to provide a not-so-ordinary commemoration of the participants in those events, who from soldiers fighting in the capital turned into the Wehrmacht’s prisoners-of-war.

The activities carried out on 8-9 October this year at railway stations and on boards of local trains included a happening performed by actors from the Ekostudio Theatre in Opole and an information campaign in which museum educators played a leading role. The idea of the event was borne at our institution two years ago, and its first edition proved so successful that we decided to return to the idea periodically - as far as the organisational possibilities allowed.

The campaign was organised in cooperation with the Opole Branch of POLREGIO S.A. It was addressed to people travelling on POLREGIO trains on the Opole-Łambinowice-Opole line and - and here a novelty - those waiting for trains on the platforms of the stations: Opole Główne, Tułowice, Łambinowice. The choice of these places is not coincidental - this is exactly the same railway line, which in October 1944 was used by Wehrmacht-supervised transports of the captured Warsaw insurgents to Lamsdorf.

Modest means of expression were used to implement the project- the actors, dressed in plain, black costumes, had only two attributes-symbols: insurgent white-and-red armbands and apples handed out to travellers, which referred to what Barbara ‘Wirta’Lewandowska, one of the participants of the uprising and a prisoner of Stalag 344 Lamsdorf, recalls. In the end, 80 kg of apples and more than 500 leaflets were distributed as part of the campaign. 100 posters were placed on POLREGIO trains in Opole (running on various lines). Regional media showed great interest in the happening - journalists from Radio Opole, TVP3, Radio Doxa and TV Ekovision appeared at the Opole railway station.

The activity, carried out as part of the project ‘Reverberations 1944. From Warsaw to Lamsdorf’, was financed from funds of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Plan - investment A2.5.1. ‘Programme to support the activities of entities from the cultural and creative industries sector to stimulate their development’.

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