Photo coverage | USA ambassador with a visit at the excavations
On November 2, 2022, the Ambassador of the United States to Poland Mark Brzezinski was the guest of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. He was accompanied by Emily Martinez Roca, Commissioner for Human Rights, and Jeanne Briganti, Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw.
The guests visited the area of excavations at Miła 2 (formerly Miła 18) and the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital at Sienna 60/Śliska 51 – the future seat of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. Dr Jacek Konik from the Scientific Department showed them around the excavation sites in Warsaw’s Muranow district.
“Even by standing here and seeing these physical rooms and buildings I feel like I am bearing witness, going back in time and can feel the people, the living beings, many of whom were extinguished. It is an important initiative to do.” – Mr. Brzezinski said while looking at the basements of former brick houses at Miła street, which were discovered during the excavations.
The Ambassador was accompanied by the WGM Director Albert Stankowski who told him about the museum’s future plans and the permanent exhibition concept. He conveyed to the ambassador that the objects found during the excavations will have a special meaning in teaching young people about the Holocaust: “We must preserve [this knowledge] for the future generations. We still remember Holocaust survivors, but the next generation doesn’t have this privilege.”
The Ambassador also visited the Anielewicz Mound where he honored the memory of Warsaw Ghetto heroes. He then went to the former Bersohn and Bauman Hospital (the WGM future seat) where he learned the story of this unique historical architectural sight and had a look at the artifacts found during the excavations in Muranow.
„That is an important thing for people to see. You can’t just erase something – and that is what the Nazis tried to do. They tried to make people stateless, to take away their identity. What you are doing is resurrecting it. It’s beautiful.” – he said after visiting the Hospital. – “It is amazing to see all this and to think about modern Poland. You see these artifacts and you get the sense of the historical direction of a country, what it’s been through and where it is now, and a future in which both memory and whatever the future holds is combined.”
Mr Brzezinski also mentioned the forthcoming 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, marking that it is important not only for Poland, but also for the whole world. He expressed the hope to meet the WGM team again in the future and wished the Museum success in its further research. “Thank you for the tour. It is such an honor to visit and learn” – he said.