- Title: Poles reenact D-Day on Baltic beach ahead of WW2 anniversary
- Date: 29th August 2019
- Summary: SMOKE COMING FROM TANK REENACTORS DRESSED AS SOLDIERS HIDING BEHIND BANK OF SAND
- Embargoed: 12th September 2019 11:54
- Keywords: D-Day reenactment in Hel September Campaign World War Two second world war Donald Trump Baltic Sea
- Location: HEL, POLAND / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, ENGLAND, UK / ANIMATION
- City: HEL, POLAND / UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, ENGLAND, UK / ANIMATION
- Country: Poland
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA002AU9UWD5
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As Poland prepares for the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two, 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
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