Galleries 4-5 | The street in ghetto / The Warsaw ghetto multivoice

Gallery 4 | The street in ghetto

The ghetto was a special form of urban life, different from what the Jews had known before. Unlike before, here Jews did not come into contact with non-Jews on the streets and in public spaces. Jews sold and bought from one another, albeit commerce was usually reduced to little more than the exchange of goods. The aim of the gallery is to show how Jews themselves “experienced” the ghetto through the lens of “urban life.”

Though hard to imagine, the ghetto reality did not rid the Jews of the longing for normal life even in conditions of pseudo-stability. For those living in the ghetto, it was the only available reality, and many were convinced that, however difficult, this reality was there to stay until the end of the war.

Gallery 5 | The Warsaw ghetto multivoice

The aim of the gallery is to show the multi-layered everyday reality of the Warsaw Ghetto, both in the institutional and the informal/ individual dimension. This gallery deals with the official Jewish leadership of the ghetto (the Judenrat and its subordinate services and organizational units), political underground currents, youth organizations, self-help initiatives, volunteer organizations, cultural and religious life. The aim is to show the ghetto as a living, dynamic social organism, which – although enclosed by walls and plagued by terror – remained an active society.

The visitor can explore several areas dedicated to community, social, cultural and political institutions, reflecting public and institutional life in the ghetto. While touring the gallery, the visitor enters separate spaces presenting the origins of a given group/institution, its activities and key figures.