The Kresy-Siberia Foundation www.Kresy-Siberia.org, together with the Polish Museum and Archives in Australia www.PolishMuseumArchives.org.au is recording Survivor Testimonies of World War 2 Soviet deportation and slave labour. These eyewitness accounts will form a unique picture of this little-known history. Funded by the Polish Senate and conducted under the patronage of the Polish Consulate General, this project will be a fundamental tool for world-wide education and research.

The testimonies collection will be available for educational, documentary, family history and research purposes. The films will be preserved in the Polish Museum and Archives, and excerpts incorporated into the English and Polish Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum for world-wide access. Copies of testimonies will also be available to Polish and other historical institutions. Personal documents and artefacts will be scanned for inclusion in the digital Virtual Museum, and returned to their owners or preserved in the Polish Museum and Archives. The names of the Survivors and those who perished will be inscribed on the Virtual Museum’s Memorial Wall of Names.

The Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum tells the World War 2 story of the million or more Polish citizens of all ethnic and religious backgrounds (including Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Jewish) deported to slave labour in Soviet Siberia and elsewhere, or who suffered under the Soviet and German occupations of eastern Poland, or who fought for freedom in exile, including in the Polish squadrons defending Great Britain, the Polish military under the command of General Maczek liberating Western Europe, General Anders’ army liberating Italy, and other military formations as well as civilian families dispersed in refugee camps throughout the world. Many of those who survived the war came to Australia to start a new life.

RSVP – (03) 9706 7720 by 15 November 2010
lucyna.artymiuk@Kresy-Siberia.org