Poland is essentially Ground Zero for World War II history, so the fact that there are so many incredible WWII sites in Warsaw shouldn’t surprise you. You’ll find tons of interesting museums here, several larger-than-life monuments, and even some original historic sites and ruins here.
The hard part is going to be narrowing down your list if you only have a few days here. Hopefully, this post will help you do just that. Read on to learn all about the best WWII sites you can visit in Warsaw.
World War II in Warsaw
Nazi Germany invaded Poland (at Gdansk) on September 1, 1939. It took one week for German troops to reach Warsaw. On September 17th, the Soviet Union invaded from the East. On September 27th, Warsaw surrendered.
Following the stipulations of the non-aggression pact Hitler had with the Soviet Union, he and Stalin divided Poland between themselves. Warsaw fell into the German-occupied zone, along with Krakow, Lublin, and others. This German-occupied section of Poland became known as the General Government. Hans Frank, a Nazi Party lawyer, took over as its leader.
Warsaw Ghetto
One year later, Nazi authorities established a ghetto in Warsaw, Poland’s largest city and home to the country’s largest Jewish population. They forced all Jews (more than 400,000, about 30% of the city’s population) into an area approximately 1.3 square miles in size. Then they enclosed it in a 10-foot-high brick wall topped with barbed wire.
Residents of the ghetto struggled with overcrowding (an understatement), the spread of disease and lack of medical care, starvation, and exposure to the elements. According to the USHMM, by August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month were dying from these causes.
Deportations
Beginning in July 1942, the Nazi SS began deporting large groups of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Poland’s extermination camps, mainly Treblinka (the closest one). During these “liquidations,” the SS killed tens of thousands of Jews in the process. If you want an idea as to the horror of what a ghetto liquidation was like, watch Schindler’s List (around the 56:00 mark).
Eventually, the goal was to send every last Jew from the ghetto to the gas chambers. This was all part of Operation Reinhard – the Nazi plan to exterminate all Jews living in the General Government. (And a major part of the “final solution to the Jewish question.”) To accomplish this, the SS built three new extermination camps: Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings
On January 18, 1943, knowing they were about to get deported, many of the Jews actively resisted their captors and fought back with guns, grenades, and other weapons they’d smuggled into the ghetto. The scene continued for several days, and by January 22 more than 1,000 Jews had been killed and still nearly 5,000 had been deported to the camps.
Still, their act of resistance had been considered a success as it created a palpable fear among the SS and guards working in the ghetto. From this point forward, resistance efforts continued with increasing intent.
Determined to not allow the SS to easily slaughter them, the resistance fighters among the remaining 50-60,000 Jews staged an all-out revolt. On April 19, 1943, armed with guns, grenades, and Molotov cocktails, the uprising began. Those who couldn’t fight hid in makeshift bunkers.
They caught German troops off guard who then retreated for nearly twelve hours. They regrouped and returned to the ghetto with an arsenal of weapons—mortars, machine guns, cannons, and more. Some troops even went house by house taking out resistance fighters one by one. Several days later, they set fire to the ghetto.
The battle lasted until the SS surrounded the resistance headquarters on May 8 (19 days later). During the Uprising, the SS rounded up approximately 42,000 people and sent them to the gas chambers at Treblinka. Many more died from either the fight or in the fires. Several were able to escape and go into hiding though.
The Warsaw Uprising
In August 1944, more than a year after the Warsaw ghetto had been reduced to rubble, Poland’s underground resistance movement staged a city-wide revolt, cheered on and assisted by the civilian population. This was planned to coincide with Germany’s retreat from the advancing Soviet Red Army.
Believing the Red Army (which was already on Warsaw’s doorstep) would join the fight against the Germans, morale was high. Instead, the Soviet army refused to intervene and hung back across the river to let the Germans and the Polish resistance fighters finish each other off.
The Warsaw Uprising (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) lasted from August 1 to October 2, 1944. In that time, tens of thousands of Poles died in the fight. The victorious SS deported the remaining civilians to concentration camps. The Red Army moved in on January 12, 1945 and took the city from the Germans in just five days.
Warsaw after the war
Given the tremendous fighting that took place in Warsaw, very little actually remained of the city by the end of the war. In fact, the total destruction of Warsaw had actually been planned before the war even started, in order to turn the area into one of Hitler’s grand German cities. So even after Nazi Germany had wiped out the entire population, they continued razing Warsaw to the ground. By war’s end, they had completely destroyed about 85% of the city.
Warsaw’s reconstruction began in the 1950s and lasted until the reopening of the castle in 1984. It was rebuilt according to its original design using historical documents and artworks. The Historic Center of Warsaw became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
Hans Frank, leader of the General Government, was captured in Bavaria in May 1945 and tried at the Nuremberg Trials. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. He was executed (hanging) on October 16, 1946.
Map of WWII sites in Warsaw
This map contains all the WWII sites in Warsaw I mention in this post. To save this map: Click on the star ⭑ next to the map’s title to save in your Google Maps. To use this map: When you get here, open Google Maps on your phone, click “Saved” at the bottom, then click “Maps.”
If you’ll be driving around Poland, check out rental car deals here. This is the company I used and I had a great rental car experience in Warsaw.
WWII museums in Warsaw
Here are some incredible museums in Warsaw where you can learn about the city’s WWII history.
1. Warsaw Rising Museum
The Warsaw Rising Museum is dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It includes exhibits on the event’s history, its participants, civilian life during the conflict, women’s roles and contributions, and so much more. This museum spans several floors and even includes recreations of the tunnels beneath the city used during the uprising.
It contains hundreds of original artifacts and documentation to really help you understand this momentous event. It also utilizes sound and lighting effects to give the impression of being in an armed conflict yourself. Let’s just say, this museum is a lot to take in. (I also got so incredibly lost in here, though I think that’s part of the museum’s intention.)
2. Pawiak Prison Museum
Pawiak Prison first opened in 1836 as a detention center for political prisoners. The Gestapo took it over in March 1940 when it became the largest political prison in all of occupied Poland. Of the 100,000 prisoners who passed through here, historians believe around 37,000 of them were executed or otherwise killed here.
As Soviet troops advanced towards Warsaw in July 1944, the SS began liquidating the prison. On July 30th, the last transport of prisoners left with 1,400 male prisoners headed to KL Gross-Rosen and 400 women prisoners to KL Ravensbrück.
The prison became a museum in 1965. You can visit the permanent exhibition to learn about daily life in the prison and the individual prisoners who passed through here. You can also explore the recreations of the prison to get a sense of what it was like here.
3. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
The POLIN Museum sits within the boundaries of the former Warsaw ghetto and covers the entire 1,000-year history of Jews in Poland. Obviously, this includes a great deal on the Holocaust and World War II. You can learn all about Jewish life in occupied Poland, life in the ghetto, deportations, and even what Jewish life was like here after the war.
4. Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom
The Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom is located in the building that once served as the headquarters for the Gestapo and the SD (the SS intelligence branch). Exhibits here focus on the Polish resistance fighters that were jailed during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw.
For more of the non-WWII-related things to do in Warsaw + where to eat and some helpful visitor tips, see my post on What to Do in Warsaw on my other travel site.
5. Katyn Museum
Located at the Warsaw Citadel, the Katyn Museum is the first museum and research facility in the world fully dedicated to documenting the Katyn Massacre.
The Katyn Massacre refers to a series of mass executions perpetrated by the Soviet Union (on Stalin’s order) in the Katyn forest (in modern-day Smolensk Oblast, Russia). Between April and May 1940, the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) shot and killed 22,000 Polish POWs and buried their bodies in mass graves.
WWII monuments & memorials in Warsaw
Besides Warsaw’s museums, here are some interesting (and huge) monuments and memorials to check out here:
6. Warsaw Uprising Monument
Given that the 1944 Warsaw Uprising was organized and carried out by the Polish resistance movement, Poland’s post-war communist authorities weren’t too keen on commemorating this momentous event. (Especially considering how Stalin had ordered his troops not to help in the fight against the Germans and withheld desperately needed aid and supplies from the resistance efforts.)
For a long time, Communist authorities downplayed and even condemned this event and its significance. Many of the resistance fighters were even “tried” and executed by the Soviets for “collaborating” with the Nazis. (Of course this was a bunch of BS.)
As a result, Warsaw didn’t see a public acknowledgement of this event until the massive Warsaw Uprising Monument was erected in August 1989, on the uprising’s 45th anniversary. It stands just in front of the Supreme Court of Poland in Krasiński Square and shows a group of fighters engaged in combat.
The monument includes a smaller portion as well that sits just a little bit in front of (on the left side) the monument. This part shows fighters descending into a manhole to represent how they used the sewer tunnels during the battle. (Like the replica tunnels at the Warsaw Rising Museum.)
On the peach colored building to the right of the monument you can find some more information on the uprising, in both Polish and English.
7. Footbridge of Memory
The Warsaw ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in all of Nazi-occupied Europe. So big, in fact, that in some spots it was split in two by “Aryan” streets. In one such area, a footbridge was built over the road so Jews could cross from one side of the ghetto to the other without walking on the street. It connected what were known as the “Big Ghetto” and the “Small Ghetto.”
The bridge was dismantled after liquidations of the ghetto meant it was no longer necessary. It only stood for about six months but remained a lasting symbol of the Warsaw ghetto.
At this location today, you can see the memorial known as the “Footbridge of Memory.” Created by architect Tomasz Lec, it consists of two tall metal poles on either side of Chłodna street that mark the original location of the footbridge.
The footbridge also appears in the movie The Pianist (around the 36:00-38:00 mark.)
8. Ghetto boundary markers
Tomasz Lec designed several other types of Warsaw ghetto memorials as well, like the boundary markers. This collection of 22 memorial plaques mark certain spots along the outside perimeter of the former ghetto. They consist of bronze plaques with a map of the ghetto and a pin marking the exact location of that particular spot.
Underneath the bronze memorials are small glass plaques that contain information on the ghetto wall in both Polish and English. They also include a photograph of that area and information on the exact spot you’re looking at.
Look on the ground and you’ll find another type of memorial marking the ghetto’s boundary. All the way around it says Mur Getta / Ghetto Wall with the dates 1940 and 1943.
9. Maly Powstaniec (the Little Insurgent)
The Little Insurgent memorial stands along the defensive wall of Warsaw’s Old Town and honors the child soldiers who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. It shows a young boy wearing a helmet and carrying a submachine gun (both of which resemble German models to represent how they used captured supplies during the battle).
Sculptor Jerry Jarnuszkiewicz created it just two years after the battle and one year after the end of the war. However, it didn’t find its home here as a memorial until 1983.
10. Monument to the Ghetto Heroes
Outside the POLIN Museum you’ll find the huge Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, dedicated to those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Artist Nathan Rapoport designed this monument in 1948 and it originally stood among the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto. Its design is meant to protest the claim that Jews went to their deaths like “lambs to the slaughter.”
11. Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East
Following Hitler’s lead, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East on September 17, 1939. By the time fighting had concluded on October 6, the Red Army had taken approximately 320,000 Polish POWs. What followed included show trials, executions, and the deportation of others to labor camps in Siberia. A few months later, the Soviet Union perpetrated the Katyn Massacre which killed 22,000 more Polish POWs.
At the end of World War II, Poland became part of the Eastern Bloc and information related to these two events (the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Katyn Massacre) was highly suppressed. When Communism collapsed in 1989, Poland was finally able to tell the world these stories.
The Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East was designed by Maksymilian Biskupski and erected in 1995. It shows a flatbed railcar carrying a collection of religious symbols like crosses on a set of tracks. Each of the tracks includes either the name of a place from which Poles were deported, or the name of the camp or other destination where they were sent.
12. Katyn Memorial
Also along the walls of the Old Town you’ll find the Katyn Memorial. This small memorial stands in honor of the Polish officers who were “murdered by Soviet Communist Totalitarianism over the entire area of the evil empire after September 17, 1939.” The “Evil Empire” (or “Imperium ZŁA” as seen on the plaque) refers, in this case, to the Soviet Union and the entire communist empire.
13. Stumbling Stones
Like most cities in formerly Nazi-occupied Europe, you can find stumbling stones (stolpersteine) in Warsaw. These small brass stones are inlaid in the ground outside the last known residence of a Holocaust victim. They typically contain the person’s name, their birth and death dates, as well as their fate and/or the camp where they were killed.
The Stolpersteine project began back in 1993 and, as of August 2024, more than 107,000 of them have been installed. Some cities (like Berlin) have tons of them. Warsaw, however, just installed its first one in July 2023.
You can see the stumbling stones for Katarzyna Zylberberg, Maria Wygodzka, and Zofia Kabak in front of the gated entrance at Złota 62. These three sisters all died in the Warsaw ghetto.
Other WWII sites in Warsaw
Here are a few additional WWII sites in Warsaw that are worth checking out:
14. Canaletto Room
Between the years of 1770 and 1780, official painter to the King Bernardo Bellotto painted a series of paintings depicting various scenes from Warsaw. After the war, these paintings served as the models for Warsaw’s reconstruction. You can see all of them inside the Canaletto Room inside the Royal Castle. (“Canaletto” was Bellotto’s nickname.)
15. Jewish Cemetery
Warsaw’s Jewish Cemetery at Okopowa Street is one of the world’s largest Jewish cemeteries. It contains over 250,000 marked graves plus the mass graves of victims of the Warsaw ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Warsaw Uprising, among others.
16. Remains of the ghetto wall
Though the Warsaw ghetto was almost completely destroyed during the 1944 Uprising, parts of it still stand today. Head over to the intersection of Grzybowska and Żelazna Streets and you can see what used to be the wall of the Duschik & Szolce metal works factory building.
Where to stay in Warsaw
There are so many great hotels to choose from to explore the WWII sites in Warsaw, but here are a few suggestions on where to begin your search:
There are plenty more Warsaw hotels to choose from though; see all Warsaw hotel options here.
Suggested books for visiting Warsaw
Here are a couple of great books to read before exploring the WWII sites in Warsaw:
Suggested movies for visiting Warsaw
And here are a few great movies to watch:
More info for your visit to Warsaw
- Hotels: Find great places to stay on Booking.com (my go-to). Expedia and Hotels.com are worth checking too. VRBO is best for apartment rentals.
- Rental cars: Check out the best local rental car deals here.
- For more local tours, check out all the options from Viator and Get Your Guide.
- Don’t forget a Poland guidebook and this must-have Poland customs and culture guide!
- Want more? See all my Poland posts here.
Like this post? Have questions about visiting any of the WWII sites in Warsaw? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
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