Poland prepares for evacuation of most important artworks in case of Russian invasion

Poland’s culture ministry has set up a special department, headed by a former military intelligence officer, to prepare for the safe evacuation of the country’s most precious artworks in the event of a Russian invasion.

The initiative – which makes use of Poland’s experience helping Ukraine relocate its own cultural artefacts during the ongoing war with Russia – was outlined by culture minister Hanna Wróblewska in an interview with the Financial Times (FT).

She told the newspaper that Poland has held talks with foreign authorities about potentially hosting paintings, sculptures, books and musical instruments from around 160 Polish state institutions.

Private museums and galleries are also expected to be involved in the plans, which Wróblewska expects to be finalised by the end of this year.

The efforts are being led by Maciej Matysiak, a former deputy head of Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW), who is in charge of a 40-strong department of security and crisis management created by the culture ministry.

Because “it is not possible to evacuate everything”, one of their tasks is ascertaining which artworks should be prepared for “priority evacuation Wróblewska told the FT.

The minister also said that Poland is drawing on the experience of Ukrainian art experts to learn “how it is to work in such a crisis for real”.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has stepped up its preparedness for war in a number of areas, including billions of dollars worth of new military equipment, a recruitment drive to expand the size of the armed forces, and efforts to improve civilian protection.

The country is now by some distance the largest relative defence spender in NATO, devoting the equivalent of 4.7% of GDP to defence this year.

Poland has also in recent years stepped up efforts to secure the return of historical and cultural artefacts looted by Germany and the Soviet Union during the war. The culture ministry notes that hundreds of thousands of items remain missing.

Last year, the Polish culture ministry confirmed that efforts are underway to restitute 73 historical documents – including a 15th-century peace treaty between Poland, Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights – currently held in a Berlin archive.

In 2023, Poland secured the return from Spain of two paintings by Flemish master Dieric Bouts from the 15th or 16th century that had been part of the Czartoryski collection before being looted by the Germans during the war.