The War that Never Ends: The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk

The story of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk epitomizes one of the most important and dramatic clashes in the European culture of memory and public history in last decades. The museum became the arch-enemy for the nationalist right-wing as “cosmopolitan”, “pseudo-universalistic”, “pacifistic” and “not Polish enough”.

Paweł Machcewicz, historian and museum's founding director, was removed from his position by the Law and Justice government immediately after opening the museum t...