- Title: Poles reenact D-Day on Baltic beach ahead of WW2 anniversary
- Date: 27th August 2019
- Summary: HEL, POLAND (AUGUST 24, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) MEDIA AND MARKETING ORGANISER OF 14TH D-DAY HEL REENACTMENT, MIKOLAJ DYKTA, SAYING: "I noticed that often the topic of the Normandy beach landings is very confusing and vague. I think that it should be treated as a separate topic, a separate thing looking at Normandy. I think if it wasn't for this, the anti-Hitler allies landing on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, then I don't know how Europe would look today. I think there needs to be more about this, there need to be more museums about the landings in Normandy because, in my opinion, it is a very important topic and a theme which we need to go over thousands of times so that people remember it, that it happened, that there were heroes who died so that we can live as free people." VARIOUS OF CROWD WATCHING PARADE VARIOUS OF TANK DRIVING WITH HISTORICAL REENACTORS DRESSED AS SOLDIERS SITTING ON IT (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) MEDIA AND MARKETING ORGANISER OF 14TH D-DAY HEL REENACTMENT, MIKOLAJ DYKTA, SAYING: "Donald Trump can help us a lot because the United States is a global superpower - it is a country which has influence across the whole world. I believe that if Trump promoted Poland and if he portrayed us as his friend on the international arena, I believe that we would be able to do a lot more in the world, I think we would have a lot of influence over what is happening in the world today."
- Embargoed: 10th September 2019 17:20
- Keywords: D-Day reenactment in Hel September Campaign World War Two
- Location: HEL, POLAND / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, ENGLAND / ANIMATION
- City: HEL, POLAND / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, ENGLAND / ANIMATION
- Country: Poland
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA004ATZUMGP
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As Poland prepares for the 80th anniversary of World War Two outbreak, the sandbanks of the Baltic Sea in the northern town of Hel were transformed into scenes from the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Reenactors of history brought to life the chaos and action that played out on the French coast which saw the largest seaborne invasion in history.
The event, D-Day Hel, is held annually in Poland and attracts visitors from all over the country with the historical reenactment full of pyrotechnic effects, various types of weapons and armoured vehicles that were used during World War Two.
The five day event staged at the end of August links the history of Normandy, a decisive stage in the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany, with the events on the first day of the war, the defence of the northern coast of Poland.
D-Day Hel organiser Rafal Bier said Normandy played a significant role at the end of the war and Hel is a symbol of the fight in the first months of the September campaign of 1939.
"It is the part of Poland which defended itself to the very end, and fell last (to the Nazis) on October 2, 1939," Bier said.
According to organisers, about 300 re-enactors and some 60 military vehicles, including a Sharman tank, from private and public collections in different Polish towns, took part in the event this year.
(Production: Kacper Pempel, Rita Plantera, Louisa Naks, Malgorzata Wojtunik) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
