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Anti-war drawings by Polish, Ukrainian children to go on show in Warsaw in July

01.06.2022 18:30
Poland’s National Archives have teamed up with Ukrainian partners to create an exhibition of anti-war drawings by Polish and Ukrainian children.
Polands National Archives have teamed up with Ukrainian partners to create an exhibition of anti-war drawings by Polish and Ukrainian children. It is set to open in Warsaw in mid-July.
Poland’s National Archives have teamed up with Ukrainian partners to create an exhibition of anti-war drawings by Polish and Ukrainian children. It is set to open in Warsaw in mid-July. Twitter/Polish National Archives

Entitled Mom, I Don’t Want War, the showcase will be held in the open air, in front of Warsaw’s Staszic Palace, starting next month, news agencies reported on Wednesday.

On display will be sketches drawn by Polish children in the aftermath of World War II as well as drawings made by Ukrainian kids during the Russian invasion of their country. 

Organisers will draw on a collection of 7,000 Polish drawings from 1946, which are housed by the National Archives in Warsaw, officials said. 

Meanwhile, the anti-war sketches by Ukrainian children are part of the ongoing Mom, I See War project, which has so far collected some 12,000 drawings, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

They can be viewed online at www.momiseewar.com and on the project’s social media sites. 

Experience of war

The head of Poland’s National Archives, Paweł Pietrzyk, said on Wednesday that the Warsaw exhibition would show "the situation in which Polish and Ukrainian children found themselves, surrounded by war."

"Even though the wartime experiences of Polish and Ukrainian children are almost a century apart, these experiences are the same,” Pietrzyk told a news conference. 

Meanwhile, Dorota Sadowska, a senior researcher at the University of Warsaw, commented: “The children draw what for them is a cruel reality: smashed, destroyed homes, families that are forced to flee, and their own despair.”  

The Mom, I Don’t Want War exhibition is due to open in mid-July.

Wednesday is day 98 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP, archiwa.gov.pl