"Wilhem Sasnal: This type of Landscape" opened Thursday in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The dozens of drawings and paintings on screen face the Holocaust from the country's physical and psychological landscape as well as the problem of addressing an unsettled past.
Sasnal, who isn't Jewish, has for two years been grappling with this particular history. The 48-year-old explained a generational have to face the past, too because portions of Polish society refuse to admit that although Poland was victimized by Nazi Germany, there were some Poles who combined from the despoliation and murder of their country's Jews.
For decades following World War II, these talks were taboo, together with the topics of Polish sacrifice and honour dominating memory. However, with the new willingness that came with the collapse of communism in 1989, historians and scholars started studying and talking openly of anti-Semitism along with the involvement by some Poles from the German offenses. Every new publication or movie has touched a raw nerve.
It was subsequently"really shocking," he explained, when scholars started to show malevolent wrongdoing by Poles, such as the 1941 murdering of countless Jews by Poles from the town of Jedwabne.
"In the start I felt shame and anger," he told The Associated Press.
"And it is still so tough to find that folks do not need to admit it. Folks totally refuse, which really is actually the mainstream Polish authorities mindset."
Sasnal also confessed that Poland is frequently unfairly judged -- which occasionally those out of Poland lose sight of this larger picture.
Poland was occupied by German forces that murdered millions of people -- a 2 million Christian Poles and 3 million Jews. Lots of Poles fought the Germans in the home and overseas as well as the nation never collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Nevertheless Sasnal considers that Poles must admit the bad along with the good.
"Unless we take this type of intricate past, we'll be judged and we'll probably be misjudged," he explained.
The display includes two years of functions that signature in some manner about the Holocaust -- functions that Sasnal failed while also dealing with different subjects.