On Monday, June 3, the gathering of the president of Gdynia, Aleksandra Kosiorek, with the consul-general of Germany, Cornelia Pieper was held at the Gdynia City Hall.
The gathering aimed to familiarize and find further cooperation between Gdynia and its sister town, German Kilonia. Consul Pieper congratulated Kosiorek on his election success and took the position of president of Gdynia, making his most heartfelt wishes.
Everything seemed to be perfect, until Madam president Gdynia presented a gift to the Consul General of Germany. It was a image of the Hunsdorff household building from Starowiejska Street. At first glance – a beautiful gesture. But behind that courtesy mask was a dark past.
Controversial Gift
Julius Hunsdorf, the builder and first owner of the listed building, was murdered by the Germans in 1939 in Piaśnica. After the capture of Gdynia by the Germans, Hunsdorf was arrested as 1 of the alleged "Boundants of Gdynia".
After his release, he remained in town, however, on October 27, 1939. The Germans arrested him again. On 11 November 1939, on the national festival of Poles, Hunsdorf, together with a group of over 300 people, was murdered by Germans in the Piaśnica Forests.
Failure or Intentional Symbolism?
Were the officials in Gdynia truly unaware of the gift they were giving? Or was it a deliberate choice to remind you of the hard past of the city? If the another is simply a brave step from the fresh president. The fact is that the presentation of a building whose owner was brutally murdered by German forces can be perceived by German consular authorities as highly insensitive.
Were not president Kosiorek and her squad aware of the past of the Hunsdorff tenement house? Was there a deficiency of reliable verification by the officials who prepared the gift?
Controversial gift and then what?
What was intended to be an chance to build a affirmative relation and to look at the future together can now become a origin of controversy and bitterness.
Cornelia Pieper was born on 4 February 1959 in Halle/Saale. Since 2014, he has been the Consul General of Germany in Gdańsk. Previously, from 2009 to 2013, she was Secretary of State in the German Ministry of abroad Affairs, Co-ordinator of the national government for intersocial Polish-German relations and from 1998 to 2013 a associate of the Bundestag; FDP faction (President and Vice-President of the Committee on Education, investigation and Assessment of the Consequences of Technology Development, FDP spokesperson on investigation Policy).
From 2001 to 2005, Cornelia Pieper was Secretary-General of the FDP, and since 1990 she has been a politician active at the level of the Land and the Federation. In 1982, she graduated from the University of Leipzig and in Warsaw in the field of applied linguistics. She is simply a certified translator of Polish and Russian languages. She received honors from prof. h.c. (University of Jan Kochanowski in Kielce) in 2011 and Doctor h.c. (University of Dokkyo, Japan) in 2010.
She's a widow, she has 1 son.
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