Poland museum founded 150 years ago in Switzerland saved from eviction threats
A Polish museum founded in Switzerland over 150 years ago was saved after the Polish government stepped in to buy it a new home amid the threat of eviction.
The institution was founded in 1870 in Rapperswil Castle by Władysław Plater, a Polish nobleman who had fought against Russian rule in the Polish Uprising of 1830, after which he fled into exile and continued to support the Polish national cause from abroad.
The institution – established at a time when Poland was off the map and many Poles were living in exile – became an important bastion of the diaspora. It housed many important items from their homeland and also hosted a number of important cultural figures, including writer Bolesław Prus and poet Maria Konopnicka.
The Polish Museum in #Rapperswilon Lake Zurich, has been a unique outpost of 🇵🇱 culture in Switzerland for 1⃣5⃣0⃣ years today.
It was founded by a Polish émigré, the chateau’s leaseholder and restorer, Count Władysław Broel-Plater, who sought refuge after the one in 🇨🇭 #November Uprising. pic.twitter.com/zgREvTw3WN
— Poland.pl (@Poland) October 23, 2020
But the museum has been under threat since 2008, amid a campaign by some in Rapperswil who have argued it attracts few visitors and occupies valuable space in the historic 13th-century castle that could be put to better use.
In a 2013 referendum, locals voted to evict the museum Gazeta Wyborcza back then. However, the Swiss broadcaster SRF reported the following year that the museum would be allowed to remain.
Then, in 2020, said the museum’s director, Anna Buchmann, Poland Rzeczpospolita Newspaper that the institution had been informed again that it had to move out of the castle.
“Girl with Shopping”, Wacław Szymanowski, 1889; The Poland Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland pic.twitter.com/X0E7q4HhLx
— Olga Tuleninova 🦋 (@olgatuleninova) September 16, 2019
On Friday last week, the Polish Ministry of Culture announced that the government had intervened to resolve the situation. Poland has acquired its own property in Rapperswil, the former Hotel Schwanen, which will now house the Poland Museum.
“Many years of Polish-Swiss efforts have found a happy ending,” said Minister of Culture Piotr Gliński at a ceremony on Friday in Rapperswil in the presence of Poland’s Ambassador to Switzerland, Iwona Kozłowska, and Buchmann.
Gliński remarked that the museum’s new home is very appropriate as the hotel was a meeting place for Poles living in Switzerland in the 19th century. The move will also allow for the creation of more modern facilities that will breathe “new life” into “one of the oldest Polish institutions in Europe.”
Ambassador Iwona Kozłowska: Muzeum Polskie w Rapperswilu uratowane! pic.twitter.com/0PeNXfQMOM
— PLinSwitzerland (@PLinSwitzerland) July 1, 2022
“Today the government of free Poland, for which the creators of this museum fought and dreamed, provided a seat for the museum and enabled the continuation of this institution,” said Buchmann.
The new location in the former hotel will also house a new Swiss branch of the Pilecki Institute, a state institution established in 2017 with the task of commemorating and honoring Poles who were victims of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism.
His main activities include telling the story of the group of Polish diplomats in Switzerland during World War II who produced thousands of fake passports to help Jews escape German-occupied Europe and the Holocaust.
New evidence of how Polish diplomats helped Jews survive the Holocaust with fake passports
Main Image Credit: Roland zh/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)
Daniel Tilles is Editor-in-Chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a variety of publications, including foreign policy, POLITICS Europe, EU observer and Dzennik Gazeta Prawna.