Message from Zygmunt Stępiński What a year it has been at POLIN Museum!
Dear Friends,
As Director of POLIN Museum, I am delighted to share that in 2024 POLIN Museum will celebrate its 10th anniversary. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation for what we have accomplished together with your support since we opened our doors in October 2014.
In that spirit, I would like to review some of the most memorable moments from the life of the museum in 2023, which demonstrate how we are fulfilling our mission.
We organized much of the year around the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In marking this historic event, we were inspired by the commandment “Thou shalt not be indifferent,” the memorable words of Marian Turski, Auschwitz survivor and journalist.
On April 19, 2023, we took part in the ceremony at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes facing our building. Along with the presidents of Germany, Israel and Poland, thousands gathered to pay their respects to those who lived, fought, and died in the ghetto.
In addition, over the course of 2023:
We commemorated the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with 800 online and offline events, reaching more than 4.4 million people across the globe.
We handed out 650,000 paper daffodils in 21 countries, so that people of good will around the world could wear this symbol of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on their clothes, a gesture that touched millions of people.
We mounted a powerful temporary exhibition, "Around Us Sea of Fire," which explored the fate of Jewish civilians during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This innovative exhibition attracted more than 130,000 visitors.
While preparing this exhibition, the museum’s curatorial team discovered two new collections of photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.These astonishing discoveries included negatives and prints by a Polish firefighter, Zbigniew Leszek Grzywaczewski, and prints by another Polish amateur photographer, Rudolf Damec. We exhibited their photos, and we have also published them in a two-volume boxed set.
On a personal note, I was honored to spend time in 2023 with Krystyna Budnicka (born Hena Kuczer), one of the last living survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, who lives today near the Museum. She was 11 years old at the time of the Uprising, and today her strength and sense of mission remind me of why our work at the Museum is indispensable.
And while the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the theme of the year, we did so much more:
We welcomed 430,000 visitors in 2023!
We held the POLIN Music Festival and TISH Jewish Food Festival, both highly acclaimed, award-winning cultural celebrations.
We gave the 9th annual POLIN Award to individuals and organizations who have refused to be indifferent to the history of Polish Jews, people who invest their hearts and minds in preserving Jewish heritage across Poland.
We organized three international academic conferences within our Global Education Outreach Program, generating and sharing new knowledge.
We have tremendous plans for 2024, and we look forward to celebrating all we have accomplished with you.
Stay tuned! I’ll be back in touch.
Thank you! Dziękuję!
Zygmunt Stępiński
Director
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews