Museum sights in Mazovia & Podlasie
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Museum of Fighting & Martyrdom
Treblinka is the site of the Nazis' second-largest extermination camp after Auschwitz. Between July 1942 and August 1943, on average more than 2000 people a day, mostly Jews, were gassed in the camp's massive gas chambers and their bodies burnt on huge, open-air cremation pyres.
Following an insurrection by the inmates in August 1943, the extermination camp was completely demolished and the area ploughed over and abandoned. The site of the camp is now the Museum of Fighting & Martyrdom. Access is by a short road that branches off the Małkinia-Sokołów Podlaski road and leads to a car park and a kiosk that provides information and sells guidebooks. Across from the kiosk,…
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Treblinka II
It's a 10-minute walk from the car park to the site of the Treblinka II extermination camp, alongside a symbolic railway representing the now-vanished line that brought the cattle trucks full of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. The huge granite monument, 200m east of the ramp, stands on the site where the gas chambers were located. Around it is a vast symbolic cemetery in the form of a forest of granite stones representing the towns and villages where the camp's victims came from.
Unlike Auschwitz, nothing remains of the extermination camp, but the labels on the plan showing the original layout speak volumes: 'Building for Sorting Gold and Valuables'; 'Storehouse for Victims'…
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Tykocin Museum
Renovated after the war, the synagogue is now the Tykocin Museum. The interior, with a massive almemar (raised platform on which the reading desk stands) in the centre and an elaborate Aron Kodesh (the Holy Ark where the Torah scrolls are kept) in the eastern wall, has preserved many of the original wall paintings, including Hebraic inscriptions. Adjacent to the former prayer room is a small exhibition containing photos and documents of Tykocin’s Jewish community and objects related to religious ritual, such as elaborate brass and silver hanukiahs (candelabras), Talmudic books and liturgical equipment.
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Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum, which features exhibitions relating to the flora and fauna of the park (mostly forest scenes with stuffed animals and a collection of plants), the park’s history, and the archaeology and ethnography of the region. The permanent exhibition can be seen only by guided tour, which adds flavour to an otherwise static museum but is a tad expensive if your group numbers are small. The viewing tower provides terrific views over the village, and just north of the museum you will find a grove of 250-year-old oaks.
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Museum of Agriculture
Set in the grounds of a former estate, it consists of an early-19th-century palace, stables, coach house and other outbuildings that are now exhibition halls. While these are attractions in their own right, it’s the 40-odd wooden constructions that are the stars here, and collectively they constitute one of the country’s finest skansens. The buildings, from across Mazovia and Podlasie, include the likes of simple peasant cottages, large manor houses, granaries, barns and working mills.
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