The Polish History Museum, which will provide visitors with a new-look on 1,000 years of history, opened in Warsaw on Thursday with President Andrzej Duda and Mateusz Morawiecki attending the ceremony.

The new museum is located on the site of the Warsaw Citadel, a 19th-century fortress built by order of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia after the suppression of the 1830 November Uprising in order to bolster imperial Russian control over the city.

„History when told faithfully, and especially the history of Poland, is not only a reason for pride but, above all, a tool to fight for a strong Poland and for a better future,” Morawiecki said.

„The Polish people influenced the fate of Europe, maybe even the fate of the world, when they defeated the communist Bolsheviks near Warsaw (during the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 - PAP), when they fought the Nazi Germans and made a significant contribution to the defeat of the insane German ideology; and through the Solidarity trade union movement,” Morawiecki said.

According to the prime minister, Poles helped overthrow the communist system and free the Eastern European nations from „the empire of evil.”

„We have nothing to be ashamed of as Poland’s history is one of the most beautiful in the world,” the prime minister said, adding that the construction of the museum is „proof that we are on a path to victory, to the rebuilding of a proper position of Poland on the map of Europe, on the map of the world.”

According to Duda, the museum was a dream of the late President Lech Kaczynski who believed, said the president, that its opening „was one of the most important tasks which should be fulfilled by people holding power in Poland for future generations.”

Duda also said the museum’s location had a high symbolic value because it is associated with Poland’s oppression by imperial powers.

„The Warsaw Citadel is a symbol of the enslavement of the Polish people for over 80 years, a symbol of the destruction of the national liberation movement and of the will of the entire nation,” Duda said. (PAP)

mk