Museum gets go-ahead

Warsaw's chief architect Michał Borowski has confirmed that construction of the multimedia Museum of the History of Polish Jews will finally begin next autumn, after more than a decade of preparation. The museum will be located in the park in front of the Warsaw Ghetto Monument on ul. Zamenhofa in Muranów. The project is scheduled for completion in 2009. Warsaw's City Hall, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the Jewish Historical Institute will contribute to the zł.100-million investment.

The museum will be built in an area of the city that was the center of Jewish life prior to World War II, but was then transformed by the Nazis into the Warsaw Ghetto. It will focus not only on the Holocaust, but also on the 800 years of Jewish life in Poland. The building, designed by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamaeki and Ilmar Lahdelma, will feature a symbolically ruptured facade opening onto undulating walls, an allusion to the parting of the Red Sea, through which Moses led the Jews from Egypt to Israel. Holocaust and Jewish history expert Professor Israel Gutman heads the team preparing the exhibits. The permanent exhibits will cost some zł.20 million. The museum is expected to attract some 250,000 to 500,000 visitors each year.

President Lech Kaczyński signed an agreement allowing construction to officially begin last week, just before he embarked on a visit to Israel.