WOLA 1944: OBLITERATION - Instytut Pileckiego

The exhibition tells the story of the unsuccessful prosecution of SS Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth, commander of German formations that massacred tens of thousands of civilian residents of Warsaw’s Wola district in the first days of August 1944.

After the war, Reinefarth became the mayor of the resort town of Westerland on the island of Sylt in West Germany, and a deputy in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein. He worked as a lawyer and enjoyed respect from the community. Despite many efforts, he was never brought to justice.

The exhibition “Wola 1944: Obliteration. Genocide and the Reinefarth Case” is based on a collection of over a hundred file photographs from the investigation into Reinefarth by the prosecution in Flensburg from 1961 to 1967. It was the most earnest attempt and the last chance to judge the main perpetrator of the crimes in Wola. Unfortunately, it ended in failure. The photos, witness testimonies, evidence, and statements of investigators come together to form a retrospective narrative about the fate of Wola’s residents in the first days of August 1944. They also reveal the behind-the-scenes workings of the post-war German justice system, which even in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when attempts were made to prosecute perpetrators, proved to be glaringly ineffective, even in the case of the most blatant crimes.

The organization of the exhibition was made possible through the long-term research of Hanna Radziejowska on the Reinefarth case and the extensive archival program of the Pilecki Institute, which systematically digitizes masses of documents from both Polish and foreign archives related to the Polish experience of two totalitarianisms.

The exhibition was presented in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Berlin, and Schleswig-Holstein.