In Polish Gdynia, an emigration museum is opening
Warsaw - This weekend, the newly established Museum of Emigration opens to the public for the first time in Gdynia, northern Poland. It collects documents, letters, memorabilia, photographs, and other exhibits that illustrate the history of Polish emigration and the fates of Poles who left their homeland at different times and for various reasons in search of happiness in the world.
"Currently, more than 20 million Poles and people of Polish descent live abroad, which represents more than half of the population of Poland. The Gdynia museum tells the story of these people," stated TVN 24.
The museum's collections also include letters written by Polish Pope John Paul II to former advisor to American President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as a gift from a compatriot in America.
"My mom escaped from Poland with this suitcase," said photographer Chris Niedenthal about another donated exhibit, who gained fame in the 1980s with photographs of life behind the Iron Curtain. His mother, then a typist for the news agency, fled to Romania with the Polish government on September 17, 1939, from where she later made it to London, where she remained.
The pride of the exhibition, which covers an area of 2500 m², is the "largest model of a passenger ship in the world," the Polish vessel Batory, which sailed from Gdynia on voyages across the Atlantic during the interwar period, and a three-dimensional cinema.
"The theme of Polish emigration will never be exhausted. That is the uniqueness of the museum: we can not only explore emigration in past centuries but also contemporary emigration. These are histories happening right before our eyes," declared director Karolina Grabowicz-Matyjasová, referring to the two million Poles who relocated to Britain after the country's accession to the European Union.
The museum is housed in a former port building in Gdynia, through which thousands of emigrants passed since the 1930s. "It would be hard to find a more symbolic place for such an institution - and even with the address at Polish Street 1," noted the director. The establishment of the museum cost 49 million zlotys (about 332 million CZK), almost half of which was provided by the European Union.
> www.muzeumemigracji.pl
"Currently, more than 20 million Poles and people of Polish descent live abroad, which represents more than half of the population of Poland. The Gdynia museum tells the story of these people," stated TVN 24.
The museum's collections also include letters written by Polish Pope John Paul II to former advisor to American President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as a gift from a compatriot in America.
"My mom escaped from Poland with this suitcase," said photographer Chris Niedenthal about another donated exhibit, who gained fame in the 1980s with photographs of life behind the Iron Curtain. His mother, then a typist for the news agency, fled to Romania with the Polish government on September 17, 1939, from where she later made it to London, where she remained.
The pride of the exhibition, which covers an area of 2500 m², is the "largest model of a passenger ship in the world," the Polish vessel Batory, which sailed from Gdynia on voyages across the Atlantic during the interwar period, and a three-dimensional cinema.
"The theme of Polish emigration will never be exhausted. That is the uniqueness of the museum: we can not only explore emigration in past centuries but also contemporary emigration. These are histories happening right before our eyes," declared director Karolina Grabowicz-Matyjasová, referring to the two million Poles who relocated to Britain after the country's accession to the European Union.
The museum is housed in a former port building in Gdynia, through which thousands of emigrants passed since the 1930s. "It would be hard to find a more symbolic place for such an institution - and even with the address at Polish Street 1," noted the director. The establishment of the museum cost 49 million zlotys (about 332 million CZK), almost half of which was provided by the European Union.
> www.muzeumemigracji.pl
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