Polish Army 2nd Corps Museum, Orchard Lake, Michigan

[Gamburd]

As part of the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the outbreak of WWII this past September, this school (Orchard Lake Schools St. Mary's Prepatory) located about 14 miles outside Detroit, conducted a weekend long symposium about Poland's WWII history.

I went to it on the last day, and was overall disappointed on how the event was handled, but it still was worthwhile going to.

The most frustrating thing was there was no one there to officially help or explain to visitors what type of events were going on or where they were going on; they didn't even have a schedule of events printed on a piece of paper available.

The school (which is a private Catholic boys' college preparatory school and Catholic priests' seminary) has about a dozen or so museums (each are essentially a large room, or a series of a few rooms located in a building on its campus), all dealing with Polish history, including several about the Polish armed forces and people during WWII.

Their website said the museums were open on the day I visited, but when I got there, I asked one of the WWII Reenactors where the museum was and he told me they were not open.

Disappointed, I decided to look at the school's campus, which contains some important historical buildings; originally the school was the Michigan Military Academy and was founded in 1877; its most famous alumnus while a military school was Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan stories; it is said that General William Tecumseh Sherman first made his famous remark, "War is Hell," during his address to the 1879 graduating class; the military academy closed in 1909, and the land and buildings were sold to a Catholic seminary in Detroit.

Anyway, I saw the campus grounds and some of the buildings, including the library (which took over an hour) and just when I was about to leave, I noticed the building which housed the museums was open.

This really stunk because I had brought a camera to take photos of the museums and after being told the museums were closed, I decided to take pictures of the campus and buildings. So, I had no film left when I visited the museums to take any pictures.

The WWII "museums" are really large collections (housed in a large room or several rooms) of WWII photographs, military medals, cap badges, insignia, paintings and drawings; about 97% of the photo captions are in the Polish language; there was no one there to explain the collection or any of the artifacts; so, it really isn't a professional museum (which was ok, because I wasn't expecting that much). They also had some uniforms, armed bands, helmets, and a few weapons in glass cases (they had an MP40 and I think some knives and bayonets).



The museums are open only on the first Sunday of each month, and during the week by appointment only (even determining this from their website is confusing; you may need an appointment as well on Sunday); best to call before you visit.

In the end, though, I was really glad I got a chance to see these military artifacts from the Polish Army; before this Commemoration Event this year, I had never heard of these museums, and I have lived in Detroit all my life.

These were the museums I saw:

1) Polish Army Second Corps Museum

2) Polish Army Veterans Association of America Veterans of WWI and II 6th District

3) Archive, Library, and Museum of First Polish Armored Division

4) Archive, Library, and Museum of the Polish Home Army

5) Archive, Library, and Museum of the Polish Air Force

6) Museum of the Polish Falcons

7) Museum of the Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners (Polish Holocaust Museum)

Again, the museums are nothing fancy; the rooms occupy the floor of an old building; the Home Army museum deals mostly with the Warsaw Uprising.

You can probably see all of the stuff in the rooms I think in about 2-2.5 hours:

[Gamburd]

These are some brochures I picked up; a lot of interesting information, some of which I have never heard of before:

[Gamburd]

I was hoping at the event that there would be some WWII military historians and authors selling and autographing their books, but all they had was the Osprey book on the Warsaw Uprising and one other book that wasn't that interesting; there were no writers about.

However, inside the museums, I picked up these booklets; most of them published by Polish American Veterans organizations; the red book is about WWII. These were very inexpensive (the red book, the most expensive of the lot, was $5.00).

I don't know any Polish, and they are all in Polish, but they contain some interesting photos and political cartoons.







Information sheet on Polish First Armored Division:

[Gamburd]

Finally, the Reenactors were handing out some reproduction WWII propaganda leaflets; the Reenactors' exhibit was all about the Warsaw Uprising.

They said a few interesting things; they said the Polish Home Army soldiers could see Soviet soldiers across the river; the 'PW' on the Polish armband stands for 'Poland Fights'; also, this guy said a lot of the Polish resistance fighters' uniforms were taken from German Armories inside Warsaw, so the Polish fighters uniforms were identical to German uniforms, except for some insignia, and at one point during the uprising the Polish soldiers marched right past a unit of German soldiers unrecognized.

I have some photos I took of the exhibit; when I get them developed, I will post them here.



Here's a link to the Polish Mission of Orchard Lake's photos; take a look at the September 5-6th photos, and there are some photos of the various museums at the bottom of the page (you have to click on the photo or 'Back to Albums' to see the other photos in the album).

The collections contained in the museums are said to be the largest collection of Polish 20th century militaria outside Warsaw (or at least outside of Poland; I know Kracow has a military museum):

http://www.polishmission.com/compone...ry,1/task,view

Also:

http://www.polishmission.com/museums/


I hope you enjoyed looking at some of this stuff; I enjoyed sharing it with you all:

[Gamburd]

*Bump*

Finally located the photos I took of this event commemorating the Warsaw Uprising and the 70th Anniversary of the beginning of WWII.

One of the reenactors said all of the WWII helmets and artifacts are original authentic WWII items; I suspect some, if not all of the rifles are reproductions (don't know much about guns):

[Gamburd]

So you get a sense of the setting, here are some photos of the school's campus.

The St. Mary's Orchard Lake Schools (which today are a private Catholic boys' college preparatory school, Catholic College, and Catholic priests' seminary) have about a dozen or so museums (each are essentially a large room, or a series of a few rooms located in a building on its campus), all dealing with Polish history, including several about the Polish armed forces and people during WWII, including the Polish Army 2nd Corps Museum.

Originally, the school was the Michigan Military Academy and was founded in 1877; its most famous alumnus while a military school was Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan stories; it is said that General William Tecumseh Sherman first made his famous remark, "War is Hell," during his address to the 1879 graduating class; the military academy closed in 1909, and the land and buildings were sold to a Catholic seminary in Detroit.

The school's campus also contains some important historical buildings; prior to becoming the Michigan Military Academy in 1877, the property was a hotel serving visitors to Orchard Lake, which then became the estate of a Michigan Supreme Court Justice, whose home is now the Schools' Chancellor's residence.









These photos were taken about a week or two before the academic year started last year, so there were no students around and it was very quiet.