Polish museum to acquaint foreigners with history

Polish museum to acquaint foreigners with history Gdansk, Poland - The Museum of the Second World War seeks to teach foreigners facts that are "familiar" and "obvious" in Poland but little-known abroad, director Pawel Machcewicz said Monday on the eve of ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of history's bloodiest war.

"Little is known about Katyn," Machcewicz said, speaking of the Katyn Forrest massacre where 4,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet security police.

Machcewicz said people outside Poland know little about how brutal the Nazi occupation was during World War II, or how the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact divided Eastern Europe between Berlin and Moscow.

The museum is set to open in 2014 in the Baltic coastal city of Gdansk, in time for the 75th anniversary of the conflict.

It will be the first museum in Europe to look in-depth at the conflict, and the museum will fill an information void by showing "Poles as the first nation to stand up to Hitler," a museum statement said.

"Despite the fact that 70 years have passed since the outbreak of the Second World War, no museum exists anywhere in Europe that offers a complex treatment of the war's course and character," the museum said.

The museum will focus on the fates of civilian populations, soldiers' daily lives and forms of resistance to occupation. It is slated to span 4,000 square metres on the outskirts of old Gdansk.

The Westerplatte ceremonies on Tuesday are slated to include Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel amid delegations from 31 countries. (dpa)