Ghetto Heroes Monument

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  • Address
    cnr of ul Anielewicza & ul Zamenhofa, Old Town

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Lonely Planet review

About 200m north of Pawiak Prison Museum, on the corner of ul Anielewicza and ul Zamenhofa, is a tree-lined park, which in summer is dotted with sunbathers. It's an incongruously peaceful setting for the Ghetto Heroes Monument, a memorial to the thousands who lost their lives in the ill-fated Ghetto Uprising of 1943. The grey stone tower is built of Swedish granite, originally imported by the Nazis to build their own victory monument.

On one side a bronze relief depicts a crush of doomed but defiant insurgents; on the other is a scene of martyrdom - a Jewish elder clutching a Torah scroll leads a group of his people, the sinister outlines of Nazi helmets and bayonets visible in the background. In the northwest corner of the park is Skwer Willy Brandta (Willy Brandt Square), with another memorial marking the visit of German Chancellor Willy Brandt to this spot on 7 December 1970, when he famously fell to his knees in a gesture of contrition for Germany's crimes against Poland.