News

Thanks to the commitment of a team of 11 people, we have transcribed 61 items in our collection of video and audio-recordings, interviews and conversations with witnesses to history - former prisoners-of-war, Warsaw insurgents, and their families, totalling 47 hours of recordings.

The transcription involved the precise archiving of the materials stored in the Museum's collection, what is a value in itself. It is not a commentary or an interpretation. The most important thing here was to preserve as accurately as possible the full statements of witnesses and post-witnesses to history.

The task, alongside its all-important documentary aspect, was also inspiring, especially for our colleagues who work in the research and education departments. They were able to come across on pieces of information which might be used in their publications, research works, museum workshops and lessons. The text version will also make it easier to look up for a required information.

Moreover, it is interesting that the reader's attention is drawn to something else the next time he or she encounters the source. In an interview with Jerzy Esden Tempski (1926-2021), a Warsaw insurgent, prisoner-of-war at Stalag 344 Lamsdorf, among others, and a soldier of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italy, for example, there was this passage:

... we are in Italy, and now we don't know what to do, but we are still uniformed, nourished, we look good. We like the Italian women, and the Italian women like us, because we're young, we're in our twenties, we have such a good spirit, although we're depressed about what's going to happen to us, but when you're 20, you don't really think dwell on what you'll be doing in 10 years' time. You rather live in the moment.

The transcriptions were completed in December, and we have now finalized their cataloguing.