Unveiling of the mural and opening of the exhibition on Miła Street
On April 28, 2025, a ceremonial unveiling of a mural by Dariusz Paczkowski and Magdalena Czyżykiewicz-Janusz took place at 5 Miła Street. The mural commemorates members of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB): Mordechai Anielewicz, Mira Fuchrer, Israel Chaim Wilner, Rachela Zylberberg, Lutek Rotblat, and Tosia Altman.
The words of Chaim Wilner: ‘We do not seek to save our lives. None of us will make it out alive. We want to save human dignity,’ became a symbol of their resistance.
Students from Warsaw schools were involved in the creation of the mural – the Aleksander Fredro High School in Warsaw and the Wojciech Gerson State High School of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
On the same day, we also opened a new outdoor exhibition titled ‘Miła,’ prepared at the archaeological site at the intersection of Miła and Dubois Streets.
The exhibition is dedicated to the history of one of Warsaw’s streets, which played a key role during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite its name evoking positive associations, Miła Street before World War II was considered one of the most neglected and dangerous streets in the so-called northern district of Warsaw. When the ghetto gates were closed on November 16, 1940, the street was within its boundaries. After the large liquidation action in the summer of 1942, the few Jews who remained in the district began creating shelters and hideouts. One of the most well-known was the one at 18 Miła Street. During the ghetto uprising, members of the Jewish Combat Organization came here, and on May 8, 1943, after being discovered by the Germans, they likely committed collective suicide in this bunker.
In the immediate vicinity of the memorial – the so-called Anielewicz’s bunker – in the summer of 2022, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, Christopher Newport University, and the Aleksander Gieysztor Academy of Humanities in Pułtusk (a branch of AFiB Vistula) conducted archaeological excavations. The excavated cellars, belonging to two 19th-century tenement houses, concealed many items that belonged to Jews who had lived in the Warsaw Ghetto.
We thank everyone who was with us – the youth, teachers, residents, and representatives of institutions – for helping us restore the memory of places that speak of the past but also have great significance today.
The mural was created as part of a collaboration between the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, the residents of the Miła 5 Housing Community, Concordia Property Management, and the company Masters Service, the distributor of AGS – Anti Graffiti System technology in Poland.
