During his lecture Professor Grzegorz Berendt presented the most recent information on the research into covering up of traces of German Nazi crimes in Gdańsk Pomerania. The lecture that was given on 17 May in the conference room of the Town Office in Wejherowo was attended by teachers, students, association members, veterans and representatives of local authorities. The meeting was organized by the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo.
During his lecture Professor Grzegorz Berendt presented the most recent information on the research into covering up of traces of German Nazi crimes in Gdańsk Pomerania. The lecture that was given on 17 May in the conference room of the Town Office in Wejherowo was attended by teachers, students, association members, veterans and representatives of local authorities. The meeting was organized by the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo.
Amongst the audience there were Deputy Mayor of Wejherowo, Mr. Piotr Bochiński, Regular Members of the Management Board of Wejherowo Poviat, Mr. Wojciech Rybakowski and Mr. Jacek Thiel. The Head of the Education and Social Affairs Department of the Wejherowo Commune Office was also present.
The lecture was started by the Director of the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo, Ms. Teresa Patsidis, who presented the directions of development of the newly established Museum expected to commemorate the victims of the massacre in Piaśnica. Destruction of the traces of the said crime was a very important issue touched upon by Professor Berendt and discussed subsequently with the members of audience. It is worth stressing that many comments came from junior and senior secondary school students.
Professor Berendt presented the most important information on a started in 1942 machine for destroying the evidence of crimes committed by the members of the Third Reich security apparatus in Pomerania. The operation was made strictly confidential and codenamed 1005. It was managed by Paul Blobel, who together with his collaborators organized a process for covering up traces of crimes perpetrated by Germans. Professor Berendt presented the criminals’ operating procedures, including an appalling process of burning the victims’ bodies. ‘Blobel and his deputies visited the places where works were executed. The numbers of recovered and burned bodies were reported concealed as cloud altitudes in the so-called weather reports,’ said the scholar.
The fact that the operation codenamed 1005 was carried out makes it very difficult to see the full picture of German crimes in Pomerania. The final number of victims - including those murdered in the forests near Piaśnica Wielka - is also extremely difficult to estimate.
Professor Grzegorz Berendt, Ph.D., is a member of the research personnel of the University of Gdańsk and of the Institute of National Remembrance. He holds the position of the Head of Jewish History Section. Amongst his academic interests there are issues related to the history of the inhabitants of Gdańsk Pomerania in the 20th century. Professor Berendt is the author of several dozens of academic publications for university scholars and for the general public, which document, amongst others, the history of Pomerania.
The Piaśnica Museum, the organizer of the lecture, was founded in December 2015. Ultimately, it will be seated in a building named Villa Musica (historical Gestapo headquarters) in Wejherowo, at Ofiar Piaśnicy Street. The Museum will be carrying out academic, educational and cultural activities. Its cultural activities will be related to the fact that within the interwar period the Villa Musica building erected by a distinguished inhabitant of Wejherowo, Doctor Franciszek Panek, was a seat of a musical and literary salon.
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