The beginning of the Augustów Oblast Memorial Museum in Suwałki was to be a motion towards the victims of 1 of the most tragic repressive operations after planet War II.
Immediately after the ceremony, however, doubts arose as to the completeness of the historical message presented at the exhibition. The erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Prof. Piotr Gliński pointed out this in public.
On his X profile (formerly Twitter), he posted 2 entries describing the situation:
“After the authoritative beginning ceremony of the Augustovski Memorial Museum of Victims of the Oblast, I came to see for a while the institution that we created with Prime Minister Morawiecki and Gavin min. Beautiful and dignified. The workers accepted nicely. They show you around. – writes the erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister. abruptly I hear confusion. A firm dispute between visitors and the tour guide. What is it? Well, 1 character was missing among the reported perpetrators. Yeah, no surprise. The museum is presently silent about Maximilian Schnepf.. –
Maximilian Marian Schnepf (1920–2003) came from a judaic household native to Drohobych. This colonel, the certified People's Army of Poland, was 1 of the commanders of units taking part in the alleged Augustov raid. His name goes through historical sources, but – as Gliński noted – the recently opened museum was not included among the perpetrators.
August raid: what was “Little Katyn”?
The August raid, besides called the July raid, is simply a military operation carried out in July 1945 by Red Army troops, NKVD, separate units of the People's Army of Poland and the safety Office. The aim was to break up underground troops of independency and anti-communist forces in Suwałczyz and Augustów. According to the findings of the Institute of National Memory, about 7,000 people were detained as a consequence of the raid, and at least 600 of them were murdered and buried in an unestablished site. For this reason, the event is referred to as "Little Katyń" – a crime of no little weight, though for decades almost completely silenced.
Why was 1 of the torturers missing from the Museum?
Prof. Gliński does not straight propose the reasons for the omission of Maximilian Schnepf in the exhibition, but there is no deficiency of votes indicating the possible political-media background of this decision. Maximilian Schnepf was the father of Radosław Schnepf, the erstwhile Polish Ambassador to Washington, and the daughter-in-law of the officer is Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf.
Wysocka-Schnepf has been active with the media for years. From 2016 to 2024 she worked for “Gazeta Wyborcza”, and from February 2024 she returned to the Polish Television, where she runs publicist and information programs, including:
- Unsymmetrical conversations on TVP Info,
- Question of the day just after the main release of the service 19.30 in TVP1, TVP Polonia and TVP Info,
- As they see us on TVP Polonia,
- and co-hosts Dangerous Relationships on TVP Info.
It is hard not to announcement that the subject of the household connections of erstwhile PRL safety officers with today's public figures is inactive emotional, but frequently remains beyond the authoritative message. Especially in institutions to service historical memory.
Thesis: selective memory in the museum for image reasons
From an observer's perspective, things seem clear. Omission of Schnepf's name may be a decision calculated to avoid political and media tensions. On the 1 hand, it is about respect for the victims, on the another hand, about uncomfortable questions that could be raised to people present today, especially in public media. Of course, there is no authoritative confirmation of specified intent. However, past knows many cases when, in the process of creating exhibitions or monuments, certain names abruptly "disappeared" from authoritative narratives if they could interfere with current policies or interests of circumstantial environments.
The question remains: is the Augustów Oblast Memorial Museum to be a place full of historical fact or a selective communicative convenient for the chosen? Transparency in specified institutions requires that we do not overlook facts – regardless of who they may be today.
