Cienkowska announced the project on Poland’s National Independence Day, saying the museum would tell the story of “great battles and tragedies, but above all about people”.
“On November 11 we celebrate freedom, but it is our duty also to remember the road that led us to it”, she said, according to the culture ministry’s website.
The museum will commemorate the Battle of Gorlice, which began on May 2, 1915, when a surprise German and Austro-Hungarian attack broke the Russian front. About 20,000 soldiers from both sides died.
“Thousands of soldiers died, among them Poles, often forcibly conscripted into the armies of the partitioning powers and made to fight against each other”, Cienkowska said. Regional war cemeteries hold soldiers of many nationalities, “people whom war divided and death united”.
The ministry said the museum would be built on the site of Cemetery No. 91 and aims to fill a gap in European remembrance, where Western Front narratives dominate. Experts from Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Latvia and Slovakia advised on the concept.
Its collections will include weapons, uniforms, letters, diaries and photographs, most of them held by the PTTK Museum in Gorlice. It will also serve as a research centre and offer educational programmes for schools.
(jh)
Source: PAP