POLIN Museum: A Monument to Life and Memory

The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw is both a monument to a lost civilization and a cultural institution of the highest caliber. Housed in a striking contemporary building in Muranów—the prewar Jewish district that later became part of the Warsaw Ghetto—and facing the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, the museum traces 1,000 years of Jewish life in Polish lands, from early migrations and the Golden Age through the partitions, the Holocaust, and into the present day.The building’s striking glass façade and golden interior passage evoke both continuity and fracture on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto.Facing the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, the POLIN Museum stands on the site of the prewar Jewish neighborhood and wartime ghetto. Together, the museum and monument form a powerful memorial complex. One visits the monument to honor those who died by remembering how they died. One enters the museum to honor them—and those who came before and after—by remembering how…