The Embassy of Poland in Chisinau staged an exhibition entitled “Enigma. Victory of decrypting” at the Military Museum in Chisinau. In a press release, the Embassy says the exhibition is designed to bring us closer to the story of less known Polish heroes-cryptologists, teachers and collaborators whose knowledge and mathematical brain enabled them to break one of the best-kept secrets of the Third Reich. The exhibition was mounted by the Council of Wielkopolska Region and, in the Romanian version, by the Polish Institute in Bucharest, IPN reports.

The German cipher machine “Enigma” was made by Arthur Scherbius. It achieved commercial success on the civilian market and in state and administrative institutions long before the start of World War II (1939-1945). Since 1932, the Polish cryptologists managed to first decipher the very difficult codes of “Enigma”. It happened at the Saxon Palace in Warsaw, which housed the head office of the Cipher Bureau of the Second Division of the General Staff of the Polish Army.

The parents of the success were Polish mathematicians-cryptologists Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski. Their accomplishments enabled to break the codes of “Enigma”, which were constantly improved.

Five weeks before World War II, on July 25, 1939, the heads of the Cipher Bureau of Poland and the mathematicians-cryptologists revealed the Polish achievements to the French and British intelligence services. After the war started, the deciphering continued in the UK and France, with the participation of Polish people of science. This part of the story is known yet from movies and books.

The exhibition can be visited until May 28.