Among the many units deployed by the 1st Canadian Army in Normandy, one division seems to have been plucked from another tale: the 1st Polish Armoured Division, part of General Simonds' II Corps. In the summer of 1944, its tanks raced across the Caen plain during operations Totalize and Tractable, before playing a decisive role in closing the Falaise-Chambois pocket, one of the major turning points in the Battle of Normandy.

Commanded by General Maczek, the 1st DB brought together soldiers who had fought in Poland in 1939 and in France in 1940. Beaten but never defeated, these men twice chose exile rather than surrender. Their involvement in Normandy was much more than a military operation: it was the continuation of a fight begun five years earlier for the honour and independence of their homeland.

This lecture will retrace the unique history of this extraordinary division: its journey, its battles, its men, and its place within the II Canadian Corps. Through maps, eyewitness accounts and images, the aim is to better understand why the liberation of Normandy was also, for the Poles, a fight without a homeland... but never without a cause.

Jacques Wiacek, a graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux and HEC Paris, is a historian specialising in the military history of the Second World War. His works, based on solid documentary and iconographic research, seek to place military operations in their human, political and memorial context, paying particular attention to the combatants who remained in the shadows of the great narratives.

• the 31 may 2026 from 15:00 to 16:00

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