Warsaw Rising Museum

Lonely Planet review

On the southwestern edge of the former Jewish Ghetto stands the modern Warsaw Rising Museum . Housed in a beautifully restored redbrick power station, it traces the history of the Rising through three levels of interactive displays, photographs, film archives and the personal accounts of those who survived.

The sheer volume of material is overwhelming, but the museum does an excellent job of instilling visitors with a sense of the desperation Varsovians faced during the war. The ground floor begins with the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 and moves through the major events of WWII. A lift then whisks you to the 2nd floor and the start of the Rising in 1944. The largest exhibit, a Liberator bomber similar to the planes that used to drop supplies for insurgents during the Rising, fills much of the 1st floor. Be sure to take the lift towards the rear of the building that rises to a viewing platform; here pictures pinpoint the handful of buildings on the cityscape that survived the war.

A peaceful green park surrounds the museum and is home to the 'Wall of Remembrance', which records the names of the 10,000 insurgents who died during the Rising.