Warsaw – Warsaw Uprising Museum (Printing Press)

There’s a recreated printing press at the Warsaw Uprising Museum and they’ve got it going so that they can produce copies of genuine posters which were made by those courageous Poles fighting against the odds against the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising. There’s something amazing that even in a city which had been so overwhelmed that resourceful men and women could produce newspapers, posters and propaganda. It was also necessary to have a way of being able to call people to arms and to start a revolution against the occupiers.

There were official Polish newspapers which were printed in Polish, but they were authorised by the Germans and were heavily censored. Their aim was to cause division and mistrust within the Polish community, so it was essential that this misinformation was countered by more authentic news. There were over 100 different titles produced during the war by the underground movement, which was a serious risk as the Germans would have likely killed anyone involved. And it wasn’t just the printing of this material, it was the distribution of it.

I don’t normally take souvenirs back, but I liked this one, so I kept the poster that they gave to me from the printing press.