Warsaw Uprising Museum

The Warsaw Uprising Museum (named Warsaw Rising Museum, Polish: Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego),[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] in the Wola district of Warsaw, Poland, is dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The institution of the museum was established in 1983, but no construction work took place for many years. It opened on July 31, 2004, marking the 60th anniversary of the uprising.

Warsaw Rising Museum
Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego
Replica of the B-24 Liberator
EstablishedFebruary 10, 1983 (1983-02-10)
(opened July 31, 2004)
LocationWola, Warsaw, Poland
Visitors416,000 (2007)[1]
DirectorJan Ołdakowski
WebsiteOfficial website
One of the museum buildings
Museum logo

The museum sponsors research into the history of the uprising, and the history and possessions of the Polish Underground State. It collects and maintains hundreds of artifacts — ranging from weapons used by the insurgents to love letters — to present a full picture of the people involved. The museum's stated goals include the creation of an archive of historical information on the uprising and the recording of the stories and memories of living participants. Its director is Jan Ołdakowski, with historian Dariusz Gawin from the Polish Academy of Sciences as his deputy.[9]

The museum is a member organisation of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.[10]

Exhibitions

The museum covers all aspects of the Warsaw Uprising.

There are exhibits over several floors, containing photographs, audio and video, interactive displays, artifacts, written accounts, and other testimonies of how life was during the German occupation of Warsaw, the uprising, and its aftermath. There are displays dedicated to each district of Warsaw. There are many free informative leaflets and flyers (in Polish and English), including 63 calendar pages covering the dates from 1 August 1944 to 2 October 1944— each containing a summary of the most important events that took place on that particular day of the uprising.

Some of the many sections and exhibits include:

  • The "little insurgent" room: dedicated to the youngest insurgents and children's experience of the uprising. The room includes a replica of the "little insurgent" monument and a colourised photograph of Róża Maria Goździewska, a girl who was known as "the little nurse".
  • Kino palladium: a small cinema showing a continuous stream of original footage taken by insurgent filmographers in 1944, which was used to produce newsreels that were shown in Warsaw's Palladium cinema during the uprising.
  • Sewer replicas: one on the mezzanine floor and another in the basement — a chance to experience the practice of using the sewers to move through German-held territory (without the sewage).
  • Insurgent hospital: help for the wounded during the uprising.
  • Hangar: a hall containing a full-size B-24 Liberator.
  • Large cinema: on the ground floor, it presents a film reconstructed of newsreels. It concludes with Chopin's Prelude in D Minor, Op. 28 no. 24.
  • Observation tower: panoramic views of Warsaw from the top of the building.
  • Print shop: a room containing original typewriters and printing equipment used for producing underground newspapers during the German occupation.
  • City of Ruins: a short 3D movie of the ruins of Warsaw taken from the air in 1945.
  • Nazi section: the horrors of the German occupation and the atrocities committed by the Germans and their collaborators during the uprising.
  • Communist section: the Soviet takeover of Poland, Stalin's puppet government, lack of help for the uprising, and the fate of the Polish resistance in post-war communist Poland.

Other highlights
  • A 1940s style cafe
  • Freedom park: over 30 posters featuring colourised photographs taken during the uprising
  • Freedom park: a replica of the Kubuś armoured car, manufactured by the insurgents of the Powiśle district of Warsaw during the uprising
  • Freedom park: remnants of a statue of Józef Poniatowski that was blown up by the Germans after the uprising
  • Freedom park: street art inspired by the Warsaw Uprising
  • A memorial wall with thousands of names of the fallen and the "Monter bell"
  • A wall, known as the heart of the museum, with sounds of battle and heartbeats emanating from it
  • Souvenir shops (one inside the museum and one in the ticket office).
  • The Warsaw Fotoplastikon, a 1905 stereoscopic theatre used by the Polish underground, now preserved and operated by the Warsaw Uprising Museum as an off-site branch at 51 Jerusalem Avenue.
  • Warsaw Uprising Museum
  • Warsaw Uprising Museum
  • Observation tower
  • Memorial wall
  • Monter bell
  • Listen to "phone calls" from insurgents
  • Sten and Błyskawica submachine guns
  • Krystyna Krahelska exhibit
  • Replica of a B-24 Liberator
  • Palladium cinema
  • 1940s style cafe
  • Little insurgent room
  • Print shop
  • Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński exhibit
  • Insurgent hospital
  • Władysław Szpilman exhibit
  • Germans in occupied Warsaw
  • Soviet section
  • Replica of Warsaw sewer
  • Kubuś armoured car
  • Remnants of a statue of Józef Poniatowski blown up by the Germans
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See also

References
  1. The Warsaw Rising Museum homepage.
  2. Ołdakowski, Jan (2004). "Word from the Museum Director". Warsaw Rising Museum website (original). Warsaw Rising Museum. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  3. "Exhibition". Warsaw Rising Museum website. Warsaw Rising Museum. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  4. "Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego)". Official Tourist Website of Warsaw. Warsaw Tourist Office. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  5. "Warsaw Rising Museum | Warsaw Life". Warsaw-Life.com. Lifeboat Limited. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  6. Spolar, Christine (2008-04-09). "Polish museum wages battle for wartime letters". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2011-10-13.
  7. "Warsaw Rising Museum reveals groundbreaking 3D film [Watch]". WBJ Online. Warsaw Business Journal. 28 July 2010. Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  8. "Warsaw Rising Museum in Warsaw, Poland". Lonely Planet. BBC Worldwide. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  9. Rozmowa dnia. Z Dariuszem Gawinem rozmawia Paweł Luty Archived 2014-03-25 at the Wayback Machine Stowarzyszenie Dziennikarzy Polskich.
  10. "Czech Prime minister Petr Nečas: The years of totalitarianism were years of struggle for liberty". Platform of European Memory and Conscience. 14 October 2011. Retrieved 14 October 2011.

Hanson, Joanna K. M. (2004). The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. ISBN 0-521-53119-5.

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