The forgotten world of pre-war multicultural Warsaw and its Jewish community will be available to the public once again, this time during a virtual walk using Street View technology in the Warszawa, Warsze exhibition. This new project by the POLIN Museum premiered on 25th January 2016.
Warszawa Warsze was the first exhibition to present all the Jewish communities of pre-war Warsaw. From March to June 2014, it was seen by over 35,000 visitors to POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Curated by Ewa Małkowska-Bieniek, the exhibition was part of the Masovian Museum Events – WIERZBA competition, organised by the Masovian Voivodeship.
Radosław Wójcik, POLIN’s promotion specialist explained:
Just before the end of the exhibition, the material was filmed in a special way, and since 25th January it has been available on the Google Cultural Institute platform…. Street View photos are usually taken using a car, but to take them in the museum’s spaces, the equipment had to be squeezed onto a small trolley, pushed manually.
The journey through six historically Jewish neighbourhoods of Warsaw starts in the 16th century and ends in 1939. Right before World War II, Warsaw was home to more than 350,000 Jews, who constituted almost 40% of Warsaw inhabitants. All the famous locations: Grzybowska Street, Iron Gate Square, Twarda, Gnojna and Nalewki streets, are included in the virtual walk.
The Warszawa, Warsze virtual walk is POLIN’s sixth project available on the Google Cultural Institute platform. In October 2014, POLIN was the first Polish museum to make their space available using Street View technology.
Jolanta Gumula, Deputy Director of the Museum and responsible for its collections, said:
It’s yet another project of ours created in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute. The users of the platform have a chance to see both the core and temporary exhibitions without leaving their homes. Thanks to that we are able to bring Jewish history and heritage back, sharing our collection with Internet users worldwide.
Recently, the Reclaiming the Story exhibition, which presents selected artefacts from the museum’s collection, was made available on the platform. To make it available to a wide audience, the museum prepared it in seven languages, including Spanish, Czech, Russian, French and Indonesian.
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews was built in a symbolic location on the Warsaw map: in the heart of what was once Jewish Warsaw and the area which was later turned by Nazis into the Warsaw Ghetto. Located next to the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, the museum complements it: the monument commemorates the suffering and death of Polish Jews, while the museum reminds us how they lived. Since it opened in October 2014, the core exhibition 1000 Year History of Polish Jews has been visited by more than 400,000 people. And since 19th April 2013, the museum has welcomed more than 1 million visitors in total during exhibitions, educational and cultural projects.