Some of the best-loved Poles in the Netherlands are without doubt General Stanisław Maczek and his 1st Armoured Division. In October 1944, they liberated large parts of Noord-Brabant. Maczek and his men are mainly remembered for the liberation of Breda on 29 October, during which no serious damage was done to the city. The inhabitants welcomed their Polish liberators with open arms, and Maczek was awarded the honorary citizenship of Breda. Following the war, many of Maczek’s soldiers remained in Breda and other parts of the Netherlands, where their descendants live to this day. This year, on 3 June, the Maczek Memorial Breda was opened to the public. An online Dutch exhibition on Maczek and the 1st Armoured Division – the texts for which I translated – can be visited here.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 2.