Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Warsaw Uprising Uniform Jacket)

Continuing my series of items that I thought were of interest that are in the displays at the Warsaw Museum.

This is a tarpaulin jacket that was originally owned by the German Waffen SS when they were occupying Warsaw, but during the Warsaw Uprising the store was broken into. The jacket was given to Zdzisław Galperyn, from the Polish Home Army, battalion ‘Chrobry I’. He was captured in 1944 and sent to a prisoner of war concentration camp, but he returned to the city in 1945 and his coat was still where he left it in the attic of a tenement house at ul. Chmielna. It’s remarkable both that the individual and the coat remained intact during the Second World War, with Zdzisław donating the jacket to the museum in 2004.