For those fascinated by aviation history, this town deserves attention also because the Wadowice area is home to the most professional exhibition in Poland dedicated to an American crew shot down over Poland. It is a private display of the remarkably rich collection of Zygmunt Kraus, whose stay in Chicago in the 1980s brought him into contact with airmen, and from that point on he began collecting memorabilia from American aircraft that fought in Polish skies. The fruit of these efforts is an exhibition opened in 1991 dedicated, among other things, to the crew of the B-24 “Liberator” bomber that crashed in nearby Zygodowice. Based on contacts with surviving crew members who lived through the crash and are still alive today, as well as eyewitness accounts, Kraus reconstructed the story of the last flight of “Liberator” serial number 42-51139 from the 485th Bomb Group, named “Hell’s Angel,” led to the creation of the exhibition in Wadowice, and in 1991 to the erection of a monument at the crash site. In 1994, at Kraus’s invitation, Vernon Christiansen, one of the surviving airmen from “Hell’s Angel,” visited both locations. The exhibits gathered at his Wadowice museum are extraordinary. Many come from excavations at the crash site, some from residents of surrounding villages, and others are personal belongings of the “Hell’s Angel” airmen. Of particular note is a mannequin with a complete American airman’s outfit and an original propeller used on “Liberator” bombers, donated by American friends. These are exhibits that many a museum — not only in Poland — would envy.
