Pawiak Prison Museum

Lonely Planet review

Take tram 16, 17, 19, 29 or 33 northbound on Al Jana Pawła II to the Anielewicza stop, and walk back south one block to the ugly concrete bunker of Pawiak Prison Museum. Built between 1830 and 1833, Pawiak was Poland's most notorious political prison, once used for incarcerating the enemies of the Russian tsar.

During WWII it became even more notorious as the Gestapo's main prison facility - between 1939 and 1944 around 100,000 prisoners passed through its gates, of whom around 37,000 were executed on site and 60,000 transported to the gas chambers. It was blown up by the Nazis in 1944, but half of the mangled gateway, complete with rusting, original barbed wire, and three detention cells (which you can visit) survive, along with chilling memoirs of the horrors suffered by the inmates.