The Warsaw Uprising Museum, approaching its first anniversary, has already had over 300,000 visitors. The museum’s opening in the capital was a major event marking the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the uprising.

The gala opening ceremony took place Aug. 1, 2004. In the following months, city residents accounted for a large portion of the visitors: as much as 90 percent. But news of the up-to-date, multimedia museum soon circulated the country, and today nearly 60 percent of visitors come from other cities, with many groups of students.

Museum Director Jan Ołdakowski, asked about the age of visitors, says that it looks like an alliance between grandparents and grandchildren: two-thirds of the visitors are under 30, and about one-third—over 50.

■ Holidays and celebrations
The museum will be open throughout the summer. The end of July will see celebrations of the 61st anniversary of the uprising’s outbreak—even if not quite as important as last year’s anniversary, it will be an important event for the capital. The main ceremony, organized by the Warsaw Municipality Office and the museum’s management, will take place on Krasińskich Square, the location of the Monument to the Warsaw Uprising and the Army Cathedral. After the official mass and a solemn roll call of honor, the audience on the square will listen to a concert and watch films and newsreels about the uprising.

As part of the celebrations two new exhibitions will be opened, to be seen throughout August. One is an exhibition of shocking photographs from the uprising, the other is a secret: Varsovians will learn what it will be only a couple of days prior to its opening.

■ Historical building
The museum is housed in a historical tramway power plant in Wola district, at 79 Grzybowska St., corner of Przyokopowa Street. The museum was established in less than a year: the historical facility underwent a major overhaul, the interiors of its century-old buildings were reconfigured, and the plaster applied in the 1970s was removed from the brick facades. The facility is being constantly expanded. Hall B will be turned over for use by the year’s end. Reconstruction work is also underway on the administrative building, to be restored to its prewar appearance. The roof will be disassembled and the structure will be provided with an extra floor.

The museum has thousands of uprising mementos: uniforms, weapons, photographs, documents and newspapers. The Museum Building Committee was founded back in 1981, for two decades to collect mementos connected with the uprising. The priceless collection finally found itself in the Warsaw History Museum and was further expanded, to number nearly 12,000 exhibits today. The collection still continues to grow.

■ Museum event of the year
The opening of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, recognized by the Ministry of Culture as the Museum Event of the Year 2004, was awarded the Sybilla statuette and zl.33,000. The competition, held for the 25th time, had 243 institutions participating from all over Poland.

Ołdakowski says: “As the award has been granted to us by curators, our joy is all the greater. This means that the museum opening was a momentous event, not only for the former insurgents who lived to see this moment and Varsovians who had long waited for the museum to open. It turns out that it was the most important event last year for the whole museum community. Other curators appreciated our exposition and program as departing from Polish history museum standards. The museum’s establishment is also a major success for the city; we have waited a long time for the museum, and finally here it is.”

■ History for children
Children have a special place at the museum—the Little Insurgent’s Room. Under instructors’ care, kids will have fun, play and solve “uprising puzzles,” taking the first steps in their study of history.

The place has replicas of original toys of children from those times—automobiles and armored vehicles. Children may touch and inspect each of them. Film screenings have been specially prepared for children, as well as arts and music classes conducted by qualified teachers. So, parents will be able to take their time enjoying the exposition. The Little Insurgent’s Room will also operate throughout the summer.

■ Museum lesson
Active at the museum is the Education Center, with projects including “museum lessons” in history and Polish conducted from the beginning of the year according to a program drafted by experts. During the classes, attended by war veterans, mementos and exhibits are demonstrated. The students frequently take part in interactive classes. Their proposed subjects include An Insurgent’s Daily Round, The Fighting Capital’s Children, and The Arts at a Time of Slaughter: Literature, Visual Arts and Photography of the Uprising.

“Only taking place for a few months, the classes have already attracted a lot of interest: every week, we run a dozen or so classes. Unfortunately, we cannot organize more lessons of this kind due to lack of space,” says Ołdakowski, adding that the situation is going to improve as Hall B will soon open.

Both students and teachers are interested not only in the musem lessons, but also in visiting the exposition. Even today, more and more groups sign up for September and October. There will be no classes during the summer.

■ Visiting in Chinese
To be launched in September, a new initiative will be individual audio-guides in many language versions. In cooperation with embassies, the museum’s management wants to offer audio-guides in all the European languages, Chinese and Japanese. Polish and foreign groups are today shown around by guides employed by the museum, speaking about the history of the days of the Nazi occupation and commenting on the exhibits in English, German, French, Czech, Slovak, Spanish and Italian.

■ Music background
“Beginning to work on the museum, we agreed that it should be like a moving, good film—compelling storytelling, affecting your emotions. Moreover, it was necessary to work out the visual details and the soundtrack based on authentic archival records, acoustic effects and music,” Ołdakowski comments on the idea to commission music specially for the museum.

The expressive, emotionally charged music accompanying visitors was written by jazz composer Tomasz Stańko. The Wolność w sierpniu (Freedom in August) suite album is only available in the museum gift shop— price zl.18.

■ Collector’s tickets
Admission to the museum was free at first, tickets have been introduced only as of May. They feature a beautiful design and immediately captured collectors’ interest. Guests buy them as souvenirs, some even buying several at a time. The tickets come in 20 various designs, in the form of a folding card with photographs from the uprising printed on them and contain a biography of an insurgent—a different one on each.
Magdalena Fabijańczuk