The construction of the new Warsaw museum has begun

Warsaw - A new museum in Warsaw will commemorate the life and history of Jews in Poland. At the groundbreaking ceremony today, Polish President Lech Kaczyński reminded that Jews and Poles have lived together and enriched each other for more than 1000 years. "This will not be another Holocaust museum, but a museum of life," said Marian Turski from the Jewish Historical Institute.
    The building will resemble a simple eyeglass case with a crack in the middle. It will welcome its first visitors in 2010. The museum will be located in the Muranów district opposite the Memorial to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, in an area where the foundations of the former Jewish quarter are hidden underground.
    The facility was designed by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma, whose project won an international competition in 2005. According to the authors, it will be one of the most modern museums in Poland.
    The organizing team consists of 53 people from the fields of culture, business, archaeology, history, ethnology, and politics, including the last living leader of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, Marek Edelman.
    The museum will cover an area of 4000 square meters. A large hall is planned in the crack of the building, while the permanent exhibition will be underground. The facility will include a conference hall, an educational center, and spaces for temporary exhibitions.
    The permanent exhibition will tell the story of Polish Jews from the Middle Ages to the present day, and an international team is still working on its design.
    "The exhibition will be like a journey through time: we will show a medieval settlement, a town with a wooden synagogue from the 17th century, a railway station from the 19th century, the interwar period, the ghetto, and the Holocaust," said the museum director Jerzy Halbersztadt.
    The construction will be funded by the Warsaw city hall and the Ministry of Culture along with donors from around the world. The investment costs are about 120 million złoty (over 900 million crowns).
    Before World War II, three million Jews lived in Poland, representing one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. Most of them were murdered by the Nazis, and later many emigrated to Israel. Currently, about 20,000 Jews live in Poland.