TORONTO —The world’s first and only museum to focus on Polish Jews is scheduled to open in 2012 in the heart of the former Nazi ghetto.

The world’s first and only museum to focus on Polish Jews is scheduled to open in 2012 in the heart of the former Nazi ghetto.

Expected to become a cultural landmark in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the multimedia Mu­seum of the History of Polish Jews will face sculptor Natan Rappaport’s imposing bronze and gra­nite me­m­orial, which pays ho­mage to the heroic but futile 1943 ghetto uprising.

At a groundbreaking ceremony on June 30, attended by museum officials and politicians, including the mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Poland’s cultural minister, Bog­dan Zdrojewski, described it as “a magnificent pro­ject.”

The museum’s director, Jerzy Halberstadt, went one step further.

“Prior to the Holocaust, Warsaw was one of the world’s main centres of Jewish life, where politics, culture, publishing and Jewish theatre thrived,” he noted. “Warsaw was the leading centre, surpassing other cities in the United States and Europe. So we have come full circle, and beginning the construction of the museum is also an element of closing this circle.”

Scheduled to cost more than $70 mil­lion, it is sponsored and supported by the city of War­saw, the Polish ministry of culture, War­saw’s Jewish Historical Institute and an international roster of donors.

Designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki and to be built by Poland’s largest construction and engineering company, Polimex-Mostostal, the 46,618-square-foot glass­-walled structure is intended to fos­ter res­pect for and understanding of Jew­ish tradition and cul­ture, said the mu­seum’s deputy director, Ewa Wierzynska, in a recent interview.

“It’s important to understand what was here, in Poland, before the Holocaust,” she added in a reference to Po­land’s prewar Jewish population of 3.3 million Jews. “The Holocaust erased an entire civilization, and it’s important to bring back the magnificence of Jewish life.”

Wierzynska, who was raised amid the ruins of the ghetto in postwar Warsaw, hopes the museum will usher in a new chapter in Polish-Jewish relations. “This museum, it’s hoped, will make the conversation between Jews and Poles easier and bring some re­conciliation.”

Poland’s former prime minister, Les­zek Miller, has said that it is part of a national agenda of reconciliation that includes the commemoration of the Holocaust, the restitution of Jewish property and the restoration of some 1,000 Jew­ish cemeteries throughout Poland.

As he put it, “We want to reach be­yond the image of Poland as a place of martyrdom for the Jews.”

Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, the mu­seum’s former director of development, the current secretary of state in the chan­cellery of the Polish president and Poland’s next consul general in New York City, voiced confidence that it will improve Poland’s fraught relationship with Jews.

“This museum will be a meeting place to impart knowledge and break down stereotypes, which are painful on both sides,” she said in an interview.

The museum’s brochure address this point: “It will be a portal, a place to be­gin an exploration of the world of Polish Jews. It will be a forum, a place of dialogue and civic engagement. It will be a catalyst that inspires visitors to reflect on the personal and historical significance of the civilization of Polish Jews.”

In addition, the museum is intended to confront hatred and promote moral responsibility and democratic values in post-Communist Poland.

Through the medium of exhibits, pu­b­lic programs, commemora­tions, conferences and student exchanges, the mu­seum as­pires to be an educational and re­source centre.
Wierzynska explained that the mu­seum will underscore the fact that Jews were a fundamental com­ponent of Polish society for almost 1,000 years.

“The Jewish past is integrally intertwined with Polish history,” she observed.

Poland’s current president, Lech Kac­zy­nski, has said, “There is no doubt that the history of Polish Jews is part of my country’s history. And it calls for re­mem­brance and commemoration.”

Museum officials estimate it will attract 450,000 visitors a year, the majority from Poland and the rest from Israel, the United States and Canada and the European continent.

In the meantime, the museum has launch­ed a website, Virtual Shtetl (at www.sztetl.org.pl), which has collected information on 800 of the more than 2,000 towns, cities and villages where Polish Jews lived.

The site was created by Albert Stan­kowski, a 38-year-old historian of Cath­olic and Jewish descent.

“This portal may become the greatest source of information about Jewish life in Poland before World War II,” he said. “For many people, this will be an encounter with something they thought was forever lost.”