The war in Ukraine is an attack on a sovereign state and a conflict of a type Europeans had not experienced in many years. It is taking place on a continent perceived to be a safe and stable place to live. Our generation believed that the sort of war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia would never take place in Europe...

In honor of the 80th anniversary of the commencement of the reconstruction of Warsaw, organized by the City of Warsaw, the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią, DSH) has prepared an exhibition featuring photographs that captured the rise of Poland’s capital from the ruins, WARSAW REBORN. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY 1945–1949.

AN OPEN-AIR EXHIBITION PRESENTED AS PART OF THE COMMEMORATION OF THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WARSAW

There are 5,800 streets and squares in Warsaw, of which about twenty percent are named after specific people. More than 1,300 of these are streets named after men, and only about 158 honor women. They are often dead-ends or alleys.

While Zbyszko Siemaszko referred to himself as a documentarian, he took a decidedly creative approach to the job. He captured Warsaw in a way few of its residents ever had a chance to see it. His ability to observe and photograph gave the city a glow. In spite of our full knowledge of communist Poland’s realities,...

Photographer, architect by training, scuba diver, skier—Wojciech Plewiński is a man of many passions. When asked about his profession, he replies: “photographer.” But he claims that he became one only by accident, and that scuba diving was “probably the greatest thing in my life.”

80 years ago the world found out about Katyn. News of the Soviet massacre of Polish prisoners of war, publicized by the propaganda machine of the Third Reich – the aggressor state which began World War II – shook the wartime alliance.

After Poland’s period of post-war turmoil, reconstruction, cult of personality and mass parades came to an end, and the late 1950s political thaw-driven wave of enthusiasm and hope for something died out, came the time for stabilization – a “small stabilization”. People got busy furnishing their homes, finding something to wear, planning their free time and...

Romuald Broniarek (1931-2013) – a photographer and photojournalist who worked for the weekly Przyjaźń, a subsidiary of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society, throughout his professional life and until the fall of communism.

The History Meeting House invites you to an exhibition of the works of an outstanding photographer Chris Niedenthal, marking fifty years of his career as a photojournalist. We will present more than 200 pictures selected by Anna Brzezińska and Katarzyna Puchalska from the author’s vast collection of hundreds of thousands of photos.

Where were the first English gardens created? When did modern urban gardening begin to develop in Warsaw? What drew the crowds to a fashionable retreat in the village of Powązki and why were 340 linden trees from the Kampinos Forest replanted there? What role did Izabela Czartoryska, Franciszek Szanior, Leon Danielewicz and Alina Scholtz play in shaping...

Czesław Olszewski (1894-1969) was one of the most outstanding Polish architectural photographers. He captured the modernisation of the Polish state in the 1930s and its reconstruction after World War II on several thousand negatives. From 17 March, the History Meeting House invites you to the exhibition of his photographs.