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The agreement gives the Polish institutions access to unique Second World War photographs previously unknown in Poland, opens up the vast holdings of the French archive, and marks the start of a partnership of great significance for research on Polish history.
The meeting was attended by Étienne de Poncins, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Poland; Karol Madaj, Director of the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor; and Jan Ołdakowski, Director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
The agreement rests on three pillars:
• Unique photographs and their scholarly analysis. German press photographs from the Second World War, until now largely unknown in Poland, have been transferred to the Pilecki Institute and the Warsaw Rising Museum. They document the September 1939 campaign, occupied Poland, and areas of present-day Ukraine and Belarus. In many cases, complete sequences of negatives have survived, not just the individual frames selected by German propaganda. Together, the two institutions will critically analyze, identify and catalog the material before making it available to researchers.
• Access to the vast holdings of the French archive. The agreement opens the door for Polish historians to one of Europe’s largest military audiovisual archives. Together with their French partner, the Pilecki Institute and the Warsaw Rising Museum will make ECPAD’s holdings available in their reading rooms, so that researchers can consult them without leaving Poland.
• The beginning of long-term cooperation. This is the first partnership on such a scale between Polish institutions and ECPAD. It lays the groundwork for further archival searches, research projects, fellowship programs and joint publications. Joint work on the history of the Second World War is in keeping with the idea of the Weimar Triangle and is becoming a forum for dialogue between Warsaw, Paris and Berlin. A photographic exhibition is planned for Paris, Berlin and Warsaw, reflecting on the experience of the Second World War in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Materials transferred to the Polish institutions
In the first stage of cooperation under the agreement, the Polish institutions received
a collection comprising:
• 23 photographic albums (approximately 1,200 photographs);
• 3,431 photographs from 1939–1940 (including images from the September 1939 campaign);
• 5,701 photographs documenting the period 1940–1945;
• 41 documentary and operational films, including editions of the newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau and productions by the UFA film studio.
The holdings include materials from the Wehrmacht’s land forces (DAT series), the German navy (DAM) and Luftwaffe aerial imagery (DAA, LFT).
“The ECPAD archive holds materials whose existence Polish historians were unaware of for decades. Especially moving for the Warsaw Rising Museum are the materials showing the capital in September 1939, its inhabitants, and the scale of destruction that foreshadowed the city’s later tragic fate. Every new photograph and every film is another testimony to the experience of war, one that we can preserve, study and share with future generations. Our duty is not only to collect such sources but also to analyze them critically and restore their proper historical significance,” said Jan Ołdakowski, Director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
“This is an invaluable collection of photographs and films that has remained largely unknown until now. Once professionally processed, it will enrich the Institute’s archive. This long-term work will broaden our knowledge of the realities of the Second World War and the German occupation of Polish lands. For historians and researchers, it means access to materials that for decades went largely unseen by scholars and the public in Poland. These holdings will help not only to add to the documentation of the September campaign and the early months of the occupation, but also to reconstruct more fully the context of events known until now only from isolated images, often selected for propaganda purposes,” said Karol Madaj, Director of the Pilecki Institute.
About the ECPAD archive
ECPAD (Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense), the French defense audiovisual communication and production agency, collects and provides access to the audiovisual archives of the French armed forces from 1900 to the present. Its holdings comprise some 3.5 million photographs and 16,800 films, including records of the First and Second World Wars, the liberation of France and the wars in Indochina and Algeria, as well as materials relating to NATO and United Nations operations.
The agreement gives the Polish institutions access to unique Second World War photographs previously unknown in Poland, opens up the vast holdings of the French archive, and marks the start of a partnership of great significance for research on Polish history.
The meeting was attended by Étienne de Poncins, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Poland; Karol Madaj, Director of the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor; and Jan Ołdakowski, Director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
The agreement rests on three pillars:
• Unique photographs and their scholarly analysis. German press photographs from the Second World War, until now largely unknown in Poland, have been transferred to the Pilecki Institute and the Warsaw Rising Museum. They document the September 1939 campaign, occupied Poland, and areas of present-day Ukraine and Belarus. In many cases, complete sequences of negatives have survived, not just the individual frames selected by German propaganda. Together, the two institutions will critically analyze, identify and catalog the material before making it available to researchers.
• Access to the vast holdings of the French archive. The agreement opens the door for Polish historians to one of Europe’s largest military audiovisual archives. Together with their French partner, the Pilecki Institute and the Warsaw Rising Museum will make ECPAD’s holdings available in their reading rooms, so that researchers can consult them without leaving Poland.
• The beginning of long-term cooperation. This is the first partnership on such a scale between Polish institutions and ECPAD. It lays the groundwork for further archival searches, research projects, fellowship programs and joint publications. Joint work on the history of the Second World War is in keeping with the idea of the Weimar Triangle and is becoming a forum for dialogue between Warsaw, Paris and Berlin. A photographic exhibition is planned for Paris, Berlin and Warsaw, reflecting on the experience of the Second World War in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Materials transferred to the Polish institutions
In the first stage of cooperation under the agreement, the Polish institutions received
a collection comprising:
• 23 photographic albums (approximately 1,200 photographs);
• 3,431 photographs from 1939–1940 (including images from the September 1939 campaign);
• 5,701 photographs documenting the period 1940–1945;
• 41 documentary and operational films, including editions of the newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau and productions by the UFA film studio.
The holdings include materials from the Wehrmacht’s land forces (DAT series), the German navy (DAM) and Luftwaffe aerial imagery (DAA, LFT).
“The ECPAD archive holds materials whose existence Polish historians were unaware of for decades. Especially moving for the Warsaw Rising Museum are the materials showing the capital in September 1939, its inhabitants, and the scale of destruction that foreshadowed the city’s later tragic fate. Every new photograph and every film is another testimony to the experience of war, one that we can preserve, study and share with future generations. Our duty is not only to collect such sources but also to analyze them critically and restore their proper historical significance,” said Jan Ołdakowski, Director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
“This is an invaluable collection of photographs and films that has remained largely unknown until now. Once professionally processed, it will enrich the Institute’s archive. This long-term work will broaden our knowledge of the realities of the Second World War and the German occupation of Polish lands. For historians and researchers, it means access to materials that for decades went largely unseen by scholars and the public in Poland. These holdings will help not only to add to the documentation of the September campaign and the early months of the occupation, but also to reconstruct more fully the context of events known until now only from isolated images, often selected for propaganda purposes,” said Karol Madaj, Director of the Pilecki Institute.
About the ECPAD archive
ECPAD (Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense), the French defense audiovisual communication and production agency, collects and provides access to the audiovisual archives of the French armed forces from 1900 to the present. Its holdings comprise some 3.5 million photographs and 16,800 films, including records of the First and Second World Wars, the liberation of France and the wars in Indochina and Algeria, as well as materials relating to NATO and United Nations operations.
Photo. Michał Zajączkowski / Warsaw Uprising Museum