Gallery 2 | War and Occupation 1939-1940

The goal of this gallery is to tell about the beginning of the German occupation in Poland with a special focus on Warsaw. The gallery presents the siege of the Polish capital and the beginning of the German occupation, before the ghetto had been formed.

The siege of Warsaw, a traumatic experience for both Jewish and Polish people, needs to be studied with special attention: Warsaw’s citizens, regardless of their religion, profession, ethnicity or social status, had to go through the horrors of mass bombings and war.

Everyday life in occupied Warsaw has to be presented through the prism of radical changes in the urban space which occurred after the Nazi regime had established in the beginning of 1940.The video features prof. Daniel Blatman, MGW chief historian.