Monument to Displaced Gdynians from 1939

During our weekend in the Gdynia, Orłowa area on the Baltic Sea, we arrived at the Gdynia train station early (a whole other story!). It was a beautiful Sunday morning, so we decided just to walk around for half an hour ... and we immediately saw this bronze monument.

At first, we only saw the family, but then when we walked up closer out of curiosity, we noticed the dog a little ways away, and started to fill in the story.

A plaque described the forced German displacement of 50,000+ Polish people from the Gdynia area in 1939, at the beginning of WWII. (The war started nearby, in Westerplatte on the Baltic Coast -- this is a region with an incredible history, just in the 20th century!)

So many families (most without men, who were already off to war) were forced to pack a few suitcases, leave their homes with the keys in the door, and board trains to various destinations. There's so, so much more to this history -- we were exposed to much in the wonderful Gdańsk WWII Museum, but this one piece of art, on a street outside the Gdynia train station, touched both of us in ways we'll remember profoundly.

Take a quiet moment and look at the faces -- the girl, the family dog -- what a simple yet profound way to tell of the loss. And yet, so tragically, so unbelievably awfully, this was 1939, with no concept of the horrors to come.

More information about the monument:

"Monument of the Banished People from Gdynia. In October 2014, a monument commemorating the forced displacement of Gdynia inhabitants during the Second World War was unveiled in Gdynia. This event was to commemorate the 75th anniversary of these sad events. The authors of the sculpture is Adam Dziejowski and Paweł Sasin. The sculpture shows a single mother with two children leaving Gdynia. The family was not even allowed to take a dog. The work fully reflects the atmosphere. It took half a year to make the bronze casting in the Garstkastudio studio in Szymanowo." https://garstkastudio.pl/realizacje/monument-of-banished-people-from-gdynia/

Overview of murder and relocation of Gdynians:

See the World War II section of the Gdynia Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdynia