The five-disc album contains digitised versions of recordings made by Polish Radio staff during that Nazi German attack, which were originally stored on steel-made records, executives said.
When the Nazi Germans captured Warsaw in late September 1939, they were determined to destroy the recordings, which included speeches by Polish leaders including Foreign Minister Józef Beck, public announcements and other sounds of a city under bombardment.
200 records hidden from Germans
Yet Polish Radio employees managed to smuggle some 200 of these steel-made master records out of the broadcaster’s premises and hide them away, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
In 1979, ninety-three of these were found and their content, cleaned and digitised, now appears on the new five-part album, entitled A Collection of Polish Radio’s Gramophone Records From September 1939.
‘A tribute to Polish Radio staff, a lesson in patriotism’
At the official launch of the album on Friday, Polish Radio CEO Agnieszka Kamińska said that the wartime workers “risked their lives to save these recordings from the Nazi Germans.”
Polish Radio CEO Agnieszka Kamińska. Photo: Cezary Piwowarski/Polskie Radio
Krzysztof Czabański, who leads the National Media Council watchdog, said: “This album is a tribute to Polish Radio staff, to the courage and determination that were needed in those wartime days … and a lesson in patriotism.”
He added that after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, “these recordings are even more relevant,” state news agency PAP reported.
Krzysztof Czabański. Photo: Polish Radio
Search for missing records
Polish Radio also launched an appeal for information about the whereabouts of the remaining master records, possibly more than 100, that had also been hidden from the country's German occupiers.
Anyone with any clues as to what happened to them is urged to visit a special website, czarnyneseser.pl, executives said.
The 93 steel-made gramophone records that have been found are now on Poland’s national register for UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, officials told reporters.
The new album is available from Polish Radio’s online store at sklep.polskieradio.pl, among other channels, the IAR news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, unesco.pl
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.