Warsaw. Warsaw Uprising Museum. Director Jan Ołdakowski summarizes 2022 and talks about plans for the future
An album of the hundred most interesting photos from the Warsaw Uprising, selected by the outstanding photographer Chris Niedenthal, as well as a publishing house collecting photos from the Warsaw Ghetto for the most important plans of the Warsaw Uprising Museum for this year. The museum also wants to deepen its service with museum workers from Ukraine and the exhibition in Hiroshima.
Director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum Jan Ołdakowski that the priority is “leaving the Canadian world, which has not allowed much activity for the last two and a half years.” He noted that “the world is slowly returning to the ruts we know.” It was added that the last celebrations (in 2022) were in line with the norm.
– There were a lot of insurgents, as well as families from the “Roots of Memory” program, which is important to us. There were also scouts and volunteers – recalled the director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum in this event from PAP. He stressed that in December last year also Christmas Eve meeting for Warsaw insurgents.
– For this event, more insurgents were raised than in 2019, i.e. before the pandemic. The insurgents were very happy to meet each other. They could also share with scouts, volunteers and young co-creators of the program “Roots of Memory” said the director.
Attendance is growing
In 2022, the Warsaw Uprising Museum was visited by 514,000 visitors. – Before the pandemic, we had an average of 600,000 visitors. This year’s frequency is therefore slightly similar to this supplier’s supplier, at the same time it is higher in the group with the last two years – calculated Jan Ołdakowski. As stated, “it can be said that it is close to returning to the performance and the seller.” “We are very pleased with that,” he added.
Most of the visitors are young people. – Over 70 percent of our visitors are from secondary and post-primary schools. This is very important to us because we will fulfill the request of the insurgents to reach the young generation. It is also an element of the relay of types and origins that the memory of the deed of the Warsaw insurgents, despite the fact that there are fewer and fewer of them, is passed on through generations – director of MPW.
Almost 200 new photos
Last year, the Warsaw Uprising Museum acquired almost a thousand memorabilia from 120 donors. – In 2022, 189 photographs were also added to our museum – informed Jan Ołdakowski. He learned that “most of them came from collections that influence the name of the insurgents.”
– It’s amazing that we received us after so many years of photos that were taken by the Warsaw insurgents during a walk – added the director of MPW.
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The museum also managed to obtain two albums of photographs taken by German soldiers during the occupation in Warsaw. Jan Ołdakowski proves that “they constitute one specific testimony of German crimes committed during the Holocaust.”
Contacts with Ukraine and Japan
In the past year, the Warsaw Uprising Museum has established cooperation with many institutions, both Polish and foreign. – The most important direction was Ukraine. The Warsaw Uprising Museum is your initiator and social coordinator of the Committee for Assistance to Museums of Ukraine, explains Jan Ołdakowski.
He explained that “in the Committee, we work to help Ukrainian museums helped through the war, we also teach Ukrainian museums to help themselves with war aid.”
The Committee for Assistance to Museums of Ukraine, which, in addition to documenting, digitizing equipment and making the text available. – We also work with Ukrainian museologists, preparing instructional films in cooperation with Polish museums, in which we show what we do with the collections and how to conserve them – said Jan Ołdakowski.
The director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum can help that “in the future, Ukrainian museologists will also think about the reconstruction and reconstruction of their exhibition.”
– It will also be an excuse to change the way of showing the language, the museum narrative – added. Changing the narrative – start with Jan Ołdakowski – “may also be an area where Polish museology and Polish companies use exhibitions to cooperate with Ukrainian colleagues.”
The second direction of international cooperation conducted by the Warsaw Rising Museum in 2022 is Japan. – We have established cooperation with the city of Hiroshima. As part of this cooperation, we may be able to show a Polish exhibition about what will turn off in Warsaw during World War II – said Jan Ołdakowski. He emphasized that “a very intensive exchange of contact is currently underway.”
Two important albums
Among the units of the Warsaw Uprising Museum for 2023 there are also those related to publishing activities. – Next year, two very important graphic publishing houses will be released – said Jan Ołdakowski.
The first of them contained the best and most probable image from the Warsaw Uprising, which was used in the form of a reportage by photographer Chris Niedenthal. The second of the albums will contain photos used from the MPW dictionary, which document German crimes committed against Jews.
– Since the museum has been in existence, we have been buying all photos of the German occupation in Warsaw, including photos of the Holocaust – the special director of the MPW. – We want to show them in the album, so that on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which falls next year, we can also use them to discuss, on the one hand, the monstrosity of what was happening in the hands of soldiers during World War II in Warsaw, and on the other hand, it shows Also those people who were captured by an unfriendly and hostile lens – Jan Ołdakowski.
I assure you that “the publication will show the photos in a very balanced way, while reminding you that taking pictures of the Holocaust was a form of humiliation.”
Photo source from: Shutterstock