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Place with a Scar
It is an open-air exhibition, located at the site of the former prisoner-of-war camp Stalag 318/VIII F (344) Lamsdorf, next to a forest path linking the Museum with the Monument to the Martyrdom of Prisoners-of-War, and which you can take on foot or by bicycle. It is also accessible by car – from the direction of the village of Szadurczyce. The admission to the exhibition is free; you can visit is on your own or – what is recommended – with a guide. Besides the guided service, you can also obtain at the Museum premises a plan of the exhibition, and purchase books and POW themed souvenirs.
The exhibition, thanks to its unique form, is aesthetically integrated with the natural surroundings of a forest clearing and the camp's relicts that have survived in a relatively good condition in this particular place. It is composed of: a model of the camp site, a timeline including the most important historical facts of the place, information guides (in the form of non-commonplace benches), an artistic installation ‘Presence’, and a Wall of Reflection.
The purpose of the exhibition's authors was to create an emotionally engaging message, focused on the stories of real men extracted form anonymous masses of people, and the same time representative to it as much as possible. It is because the tragedy of captivity touched representatives of many different nations and varied armies, but also the civilian population held in the camps awaiting, forced by the wars, expulsions. The voices comprising the story of Place with a Scar, belong to the witnesses of these events - victims of the wars. These are extracts from their war diaries, memoirs and accounts. They correspond with archival photographs.
Place with a Scar was honoured with a special award of the Marshal of the Opole Province as "Museum Event of the Year 2021".
The Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice – the regional, national, European heritage
The complicated and multilayered history of Łambinowice (until 1945: Lamsdorf) is connected with German POW camps which functioned here in the years of wars and also the repatriation ones which were established here following the armed conflicts. Since 1968 the place has held the status of the Monument of National Remembrance (since 2002 – the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice).
The exhibition comprises seven parts which show the history of the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice and its contemporary state as well as the activity of the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War. The successive sections are devoted to the most important objects in this place, including as follows: the Old POW Cemetery, the area of the former Stalag 318/VIII F (344) Lamsdorf, the area of the former Stalag VIII B (344) Lamsdorf, the Cemetery of the Soviet POWs, the Cemetery of the Victims of the Labor Camp and the building of the Museum in Łambinowice.
The exhibition has an interesting form, with the narration beginning in contemporary times and then taking the visitor on a tour to get to know the history of the individual objects and the vicissitudes of people related to them. It is their presence – that of the multitude of several hundred thousand people coming from nearly all the continents – which has left a clear imprint on this extensive area. This comes to be realized in view of the available documents, photographs, written and oral accounts, memoirs and original memorabilia. Over the years the location and the range of the camps in Lamsdorf were undergoing changes. In order to help the visitor follow the changes in the deployment of the camps at different stages, relevant models were prepared. They are complemented by a series of backlit photographs. Both the exhibition and the handbook, which accompanies it, are available in three languages: Polish, English and German.