| About the museum
On the grounds of the historic Bersohn and Bauman Children's Hospital, we are creating a Warsaw Ghetto Museum complex consisting of four buildings . Based on the design by Jerzy Wowczak's Design Studio, we are renovating two historic buildings: the hospital, which will house the permanent exhibition, and the ophthalmology pavilion, the future MGW Education Center. Two new buildings, the administrative and technical buildings, will house offices and conference spaces. A public garden is being created within the museum complex, where we will recreate plant species referencing the hospital's history. Over 20 meters below the garden's surface , we have created three underground levels , housing the permanent exhibition galleries, storage areas, and conservation workshops.
- Entrance area
The Warsaw Ghetto Museum will be accessible from Śliska Street, through the arcade of the new building. On the ground floor, there will be a bistro, referencing the culinary culture of Warsaw's pre-war Jewish community. From this level, stairs or an elevator lead to level -1, where the ticket office, museum shop, temporary exhibition hall, and cloakrooms are located. From here, visitors can ascend to the third floor of the historic hospital building and begin their tour of the exhibition.
- Underground floors
On level -1, we have also arranged a Media Library, a space where we will be able to access the library's resources and digital archives, as well as a range of multimedia tools developed specifically for the Warsaw Ghetto Museum – VR films showcasing the space of former Jewish Warsaw, and an interactive board presenting selected objects from the Museum's collection in 3D. The Media Library will also become a historical information center and a space for meetings and screenings. One floor below, on level -2, there will be a multi-functional auditorium with a capacity of over 160 people, as well as the museum's recording studio.
The underground section was one of the greatest engineering challenges during the construction of our Museum. To minimize impact on the surrounding area, we employed jet grouting technology , which allowed for soil reinforcement without the need for deep excavation. The work was also carried out with extraordinary precision – diaphragm walls up to 32 meters deep and up to 1 meter thick were constructed right next to historic buildings.
- Education Center in the former ophthalmology pavilion building
We will create a modern Education Center in the former ophthalmology pavilion, adjacent to Sienna Street. For the comfort of groups, access will be via a special underground corridor connecting the building with the permanent exhibition.
| We care about the environment
We paid particular attention to the composition of the concrete, which plays a key role in the carbon footprint of our project. Although cement constitutes only about 12% of its composition, it accounts for as much as 85% of the CO₂ emissions associated with its production. In response to these challenges, we used a special formulation for this raw material, reducing the amount of cement and replacing it with alternative additives. This not only reduced carbon dioxide emissions but also improved the mix's properties, such as tightness and workability.
To reduce building heat gain and create habitats for insects and birds, we introduced greenery on the roofs of the new buildings, including sedum mats and a wildflower meadow. Additionally, we installed photovoltaic panels on the western and southern roofs of the administrative building.
TECHNICAL DATA:
- usable area (with communication) 11,552.10 m2
- total area 14,725.86 m2
- building area 1,826.10 m2
- volume 67,341.08 m3
| Mission
MISSION
Disseminating knowledge about the life, struggle and extermination of Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and other ghettos in German-occupied Poland.
VISION
Creating a permanent exhibition of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum in the revitalized building of the former Bersohn and Bauman Hospital, collecting archives, artifacts and testimonies of memory, and drawing on the achievements, experiences and resources of Polish and foreign institutions dealing with the topic of the ghetto.
Statutory tasks of the Museum
- Creating a scientific basis for the development and dissemination of knowledge about the history of the Warsaw Ghetto;
- Creating an exhibition space and research center that inspires reflection on the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, taking into account the history of Jews in Poland, especially in Warsaw, the Holocaust and the fate of Jews during World War II in Warsaw and beyond – in the territories of Poland occupied by the Third German Reich, and the post-war fate of Jews in Poland;
- Consolidation of activities for the protection and care of the cultural heritage of Jews imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto;
- Undertaking initiatives in the field of renovation and revalorization of monuments related to the history of the Warsaw Ghetto;
- Conducting cultural, scientific, educational and popularization activities related to the history of the Warsaw Ghetto;
- Initiating and supporting social initiatives and non-governmental organizations contributing to the protection and commemoration of the history of the Warsaw Ghetto;
- Caring for and maintaining the memory of the founders of the historic Bersohn and Bauman Children's Hospital building, as well as of the nineteenth-century Jewish community of Warsaw.
| Museum Council
Pursuant to the Act on Museums of 21 November 1996, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage appointed members of the Museum Council at the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
Pursuant to the Act, the Museum Council oversees the fulfillment of its obligations to the collections and the public; it evaluates the institution's activities based on the annual report submitted by the museum director and reviews the annual activity plan submitted by the director; if a competition for the director position is announced, it appoints two additional members to the selection committee. The term of office of museum council members is four years.
In the years 2023–2027, the following persons were appointed to the Council and accepted the invitation:
Colette Avital
An Israeli diplomat and politician of Romanian descent, she is a Holocaust survivor. From 1999 to 2009, she served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and One Israel. During her long diplomatic career, Ms. Avital served, among other positions, as Consul General of the Israeli Mission in New York. As a member of parliament, she led an investigation to identify properties in Israel belonging to European Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. Her Center for Holocaust Survivor Organizations in Israel represents 50 organizations providing support to survivors.
James Bulgin
Dr. James Bulgin is Director of Public History at Imperial War Museums, having previously served as Director of Content for the award-winning new Holocaust Gallery. His doctoral thesis explored issues of apocalyptic memory in the history of the Holocaust and the Cold War. He has spoken at conferences in Germany, the USA, Israel, and Poland. He can also be seen in IWM online content covering various aspects of the 20th-century conflict. He is the author of The Holocaust and presents How the Holocaust Began for the BBC. He has also appeared in the BBC series Rise of the Nazis (where he serves as historical advisor), D-Day: The Unheard Tapes, and the Channel 5 series Secrets of the Imperial War Museum.
Dr. Dariusz Libionka
He is a graduate of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has been an employee of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the Department of Polish History after 1945. In 1998, he earned his doctorate for the thesis "The Jewish Question in the Polish Catholic Press in the 1930s" under the supervision of Professor Krystyna Kersten. From 2000 to 2007, he worked at the Public Education Office of the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin. Since 2007, he has been head of the Research Department at the State Museum at Majdanek. He is editor-in-chief of the academic yearbook of the Center for Holocaust Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, "Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiałach" (The Holocaust. Studies and Materials), and editor-in-chief of the series "Zeszyty Majdanka" (Majdanek Notebooks) published by the Museum at Majdanek. His interests include Jewish issues, particularly Polish-Jewish relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. He focuses on the attitudes of Poles towards the Holocaust and the history of the Polish People's Republic. His publications also examine the attitudes of the Church, the Catholic press, and the clergy towards the extermination of the Jews.
Artur Hofman
President of the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, actor, director, and journalist, activist in the Jewish community in Poland, and editor-in-chief of Słowo Żydowskie. From 1977 to 1982, he was a student and from 1982 to 1991, an actor at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. From 1993 to 1998, he worked as a director at the Szczecin Opera and Operetta. Since 2003, he has been a director at the Jewish Theatre. For years, he has been involved in Polish-Jewish dialogue and in cultivating the memory of the martyrdom and struggle of Polish Jews.
Dr. Edward Kopówka
Born in 1963, he has lived in Siedlce since 1970. In 2009, he earned a PhD in humanities from the Podlasie Academy in Siedlce (now the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities), defending his dissertation on the Jews of Siedlce in the 19th and 20th centuries. He furthered his knowledge by attending courses at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Goethe Institute in Berlin. From 1996, he served as director of the Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom in Treblinka, and in July 2018, he was appointed director of the Treblinka Museum. A German Nazi extermination and labor camp (1941-1944). By order of President Andrzej Duda of May 11, 2017, he was awarded the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. In 2011, he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski. In 2012, he received the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Medal from the Association of Jewish Veterans and Victims of World War II in recognition of his work in cultivating historical truth about Polish-Jewish relations, particularly during the Holocaust. That same year, he also received a distinction in the Zygmunt Gloger Medal Competition "for his research into the history of martyrdom and extermination of the Jewish community in Treblinka." He is the author and co-author of numerous books, the most important of which, in his opinion, are: "Hi to the Fighters for Independence!" (Siedlce 2001, jointly with his wife, Katarzyna), and "Treblinka." Never Again, (Treblinka 2002), Stalag 366, (Siedlce 2004), Jews in Siedlce 1850-1945, (Siedlce 2009), I Will Give Them a Name Forever. Poles from the Treblinka Area Saving Jews, (Oxford-Treblinka 2011, together with Father Paweł Rytel-Andrianik), Jews in Siedlce 1850 – 1945, New York [2014], Treblinka Labor Camp I. Methodology of Multi-Source Data Integration, (Warsaw-Treblinka 2017, together with Sebastian Różycki and Marek Michalski).
Waclaw Kornblum
A Holocaust survivor and witness to history, born in Paris to a Jewish family, he moved to Warsaw in the late 20s. He lived at 42 Śliska Street. His parents were members of the Bund. After the outbreak of the war, the Kornblum family moved to 35 Niska Street. He survived the first liquidation by paying off the Jewish police. In 1943, he was ransomed from the Umschlagplatz by his uncle. From then on, he hid, first with his uncle in the ghetto, then in Praga and the Białystok region. He survived the war and emigrated to Israel in 1957. After thirty years, he returned to Warsaw and lives in Saska Kępa. Wacław's father, Szlojme Kornblum, was a writer writing in Yiddish, whose books were printed and published in Warsaw. His work was digitized in Vilnius and sent to YIVO in New York.
Gideon Nissenbaum
The chairman of the board of the Nissenbaum Foundation, son of its founder, Sigmund Nissenbaum, is a member of the Nissenbaum Foundation. Established in Warsaw in 1983, the Foundation has been preserving traces of Jewish culture in Poland for over 30 years, commemorating the sites of Jewish struggle and martyrdom during World War II, and promoting knowledge worldwide about the best traditions of the shared history of Poles and Jews. Sigmund Nissenbaum was one of the first advocates for the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
Rachel Postavski
She was born in Poland, the only child of two Holocaust survivors, Ada Sztyren and Henryk Borensztein, whose families had lived in Warsaw for generations. During World War II, most of her extended family perished in the Warsaw Ghetto or the Treblinka extermination camp. In 1957, Ms. Postawski moved to Israel with her parents. She graduated from the Practical Engineering School in Tel Aviv and received a bachelor's degree in science education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For over 30 years, she taught physics and headed the Physics Department at Ort Binyamina. She was a member of the Zichron Yaakov Community Council and a mediator at the Mediation Center there. Since 2004, she has overseen the artistic and personal archive of the painter, illustrator, designer, and film director Henryk Hechtkopf (1910-2004).
Michael Schudrich
An American-Polish religious studies scholar and historian, he has been Chief Rabbi of Poland since 2004. From 1990 to 1998, he worked in Warsaw for the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. In 2000, he became rabbi of Warsaw and Łódź. It was largely thanks to him that Jewish preschools and schools were established in Poland. He is a member of the Rabbinate of the Republic of Poland. He actively participates in Polish-Jewish and Christian-Jewish dialogue. He was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his outstanding contributions to Polish-Jewish dialogue, and the Missio Reconciliationis for his work in advancing Polish-Jewish dialogue.
Dr. hab. Joanna Elżbieta Nalewajko-Kulikov
Dr. Hab., associate professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, editor-in-chief of "Acta Poloniae Historica." She specializes in the history of Eastern European Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of Yiddish culture (especially the press), and Polish-Jewish relations. She is the author of the monographs "Survival Strategies: Jews on the Aryan Side of Warsaw" (2004), "Citizen of Yiddishland: A Tale of Jewish Communists in Poland" (2009), and "Speaking in One's Own Name: The Yiddish Press and the Creation of Jewish National Identity" (2016). Editor and co-editor of the volumes Difficult 20th Century (2010, co-edited by GP Bąbiak), Studies in the History of the Trilingual Jewish Press in Polish Lands (19th-20th Centuries) (2012, in collaboration with GP Bąbiak and AJ Cieślikowa), and Lesestunde/Lekcjaczytana (Reading Lesson) (2013, co-edited by G. Krzywiec, R. Leiserowitz, and S. Lehnstaedt). For the "Ringelblum Archive" publishing series, she critically edited the memoirs of Tzvi Pryłucki (2015) and Emanuel Ringelblum's Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto (2018). In this project, she was responsible for the critical editing of the memoirs of Rochl Feigenberg.
Adam Struzik
Physician, local government official, and community activist, member of parliament. Marshal of the Senate from 1993 to 1997, senator of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th terms, and Marshal of the Mazovian Voivodeship since 2001. Volunteer firefighter and member of the Provincial Board and the Main Board of the Association of Volunteer Fire Departments of the Republic of Poland. Councilor of the Mazovian Voivodeship since 1998. Chairman of the Health and Physical Culture Committee of the 1st term of the Mazovian Voivodeship Assembly. In October 2018, on behalf of the Mazovian Voivodeship government, he signed the lease deed for the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum for a 30-year term.
Krzysztof Strzałkowski
A graduate of the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science at the University of Warsaw, with a major in political science (specializing in social policy), he also completed postgraduate management studies at the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw. From 2005 to 2008, he was a doctoral candidate and lecturer at the Institute of Social Policy at the University of Warsaw. In 2003, he began his career as a local government employee in various levels of local government. From 2008 to 2010, he served as director of the Voivodeship Labor Office in Warsaw, where he initiated, among other things, the establishment of the Masovian Labor Market Observatory. From 2006 to 2010, he was a Wołomin County councilor and chairman of the Health and Social Policy Committee. As Deputy Marshal of the Masovian Voivodeship (2010-2014), he supervised the work of the Department of Social and Health Policy and the Department of Real Estate and Infrastructure. From May to December 2014, he served as mayor of the Bemowo district. Since December 2014, he has been the mayor of the Wola district.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin
President and founder of the European Jewish Association. After graduating from Yeshiva in New York, Rabbi Margolin became Program Director of the Rabbinical Center for Europe in 2004, quickly becoming its CEO in 2006, and four years later became CEO of the European Jewish Association—the European center for Jewish activities. By spearheading the direction and activities of this umbrella organization and representing Jewish communities and organizations across Europe, Rabbi Margolin ensures that the European Jewish Association effectively lobbies European and national politicians to raise the profile and support of its initiatives to combat antisemitism and intolerance and to preserve religious ritual practices in EU member states.
Rachel Yud
Chairwoman of Ganzach Kidush Hashem, an educator with significant achievements in curriculum development and teacher training for women and the Israeli Haredi community. She specializes in the history of Israel and the Holocaust.
Irene Kronhill – Pletka
She runs a foundation dedicated to her parents' memory, which supports Jewish cultural and educational projects and social justice efforts worldwide. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Center for Jewish History, and the JOINT organization (JDC), which helped her family and many others through the most difficult times of the war and postwar period.
| "Miła" 18
The Miła 18 archaeological site, located in Warsaw’s Muranów district, is one of the most important sites for research into the history of the Warsaw Ghetto and the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The area, now located near the intersection of Miła and Dubois Streets and directly adjacent to the Anielewicz Mound, was the setting for dramatic events during World War II and played an important role in the Jewish resistance movement. During the German occupation, it was part of the Warsaw Ghetto—the largest ghetto established by Nazi Germany in occupied Europe. Historical accounts indicate that an extensive network of shelters and bunkers existed beneath the building at 18 Miła Street, providing hiding places as well as a base for members of the Jewish Combat Organization.
During the excavations, more than 3 artifacts were uncovered, shedding light on the daily lives, living conditions, and religious practices of the Jewish community confined within the ghetto. The finds include kitchenware, fragments of clothing, shoes, and religious objects such as tefillin and parts of candlesticks. The documents and books recovered at the site are particularly significant, offering rare insight into the spiritual and intellectual life of the ghetto’s residents.