Funeral ceremony for Marian Turski
On 24 February 2025, at the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw, we said goodbye to Marian Turski, one of the last surviving witnesses of the Holocaust, our mentor, friend, and member of the first Council of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
The ceremony was attended by, among others, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Speaker of the Senate Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, the Deputy Speaker Rafał Grupiński, the Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Hanna Wróblewska, and the Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich.
Marian Turski was not only a witness but also a teacher. His words during the speeches were filled not only with personal drama, but also with wisdom and a warning against hatred, intolerance and forgetting. This was also his mission – to pass on to younger generations what had happened in the past, so that the victims would never be forgotten and such tragedies would never happen again.
Marian Turski’s passing is a huge loss, but his legacy will remain with us. We will never forget his fundamental support in the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, for which we are extremely grateful. May his soul be bound in the bond of life.
Marian Turski's funeral ceremony at the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. Photo by Dawid Żuchowicz, Agencja Wyborcza.pl / Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
