“This museum was built to tell the thousand-year story of Polish Jews, not only their destruction, on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.”
About POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
POLIN opened in 2014 on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, near the monument to the Ghetto Uprising. Designed by the Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki, its copper-and-glass building won architectural acclaim, and its immersive core exhibition was created to recover the long, layered history of a community that was nearly annihilated, restoring the fullness of Polish-Jewish life to memory.
The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish
Jews in Warsaw tells the thousand-year story of Jewish life in Poland, once home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Housed in a striking modern building on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, its immersive galleries trace a long history of culture and coexistence as well as the catastrophe of the Holocaust.
Jews in Warsaw tells the thousand-year story of Jewish life in Poland, once home to the largest Jewish community in the world.
A Thousand Years, Not Just the Holocaust
Crucially, POLIN sets out to tell the whole story of Polish Jews, a community that thrived in Poland for a thousand years and made it a centre of Jewish life and learning, rather than focusing only on the Holocaust. Its award-winning permanent exhibition moves through medieval settlement, the golden age of Polish Jewry, daily life, and then the Shoah and its aftermath. The building's dramatic, fractured central hall is said to evoke the parting of the Red Sea.
The Experience
Crossing through richly designed galleries that recreate a medieval forest, a painted wooden synagogue ceiling, a active interwar Jewish street and the harrowing chapters of the war, using multimedia, artefacts and reconstructions. The journey is immersive and deeply moving, balancing centuries of cultural richness with the tragedy of the Holocaust. The fractured, soaring entrance hall sets a powerful tone from the start.
Why It Matters
POLIN is one of the most important museums in Poland and a landmark of Holocaust-era and Jewish heritage, recognised internationally for the quality of its storytelling. By restoring the thousand-year history of Polish Jews on the ground of the former ghetto, it serves both remembrance and the recovery of a lost world.
POLIN is one of the most important museums in Poland and a landmark of Holocaust-era and Jewish heritage, recognised internationally for the quality of its storytelling.
Why Visit
An award-winning museum telling the thousand-year history of Polish Jews, from medieval settlement to the Holocaust, on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.
✦ Insider Tips
- 1
Allow several hours for the immersive permanent exhibition.
- 2
It covers a thousand years of life, not only the Holocaust.
- 3
It stands on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto.
