Warsaw Jewish museum previewed

Museum director Andrzej Cudak (L) and Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz (R). Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and director of the museum Andrzej Cudak held a joint press conference at the site, revealing plans for the 70th anniversary of Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising against the Nazi German occupiers.

As part of this month's tributes to the insurgents, the museum will open its doors to the public from 20-21 April, allowing visitors to explore the building's sleekly designed interiors.

Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki won the 2005 competition to design the building, and the cornerstone was laid in 2007.

The permanent exhibition of the museum – which will explore over 700 hundred years of Jewish life in Poland - is not expected to be completed until late 2013 at the earliest.

Official commemorations marking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising will begin on 18 April with a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic at the National Opera.

The Nazi German occupiers launched Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto in October 1940.

The uprising began on 19 April 1943, with about 1000 Jewish guerillas taking part in the armed struggle.

The Nazis exacted a brutal revenge, and it is estimated that about 13,000 Jews were killed during the uprising, which was snuffed out by 16 May.

Most inhabitants of the ghetto perished in Nazi death camps, following waves of deportations that began in 1942.

Some of the surviving insurgents, including Marek Edelman (later a Solidarity trade union activist) went on to fight in the Warsaw Rising of 1944 led by the official Polish underground 'Home Army' (AK). (nh)

Source: PAP

Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka