Pawiak Prison Museum, Warsaw

Muzeum Więzienia "Pawiak" is a museum in Warsaw, Poland, established in 1965. It shows the history of Pawiak Prison which was notably used during the German occupation between 1939 and 1944.HistoryPawiak Prison Museum was founded in 1965 on the initiative and with the participation of former Pawiak political prisoners. It was designed by architects Romuald Gutt and Mieczysław Mołdawa. The museum building was built in the foundations of the surviving underground casemates of the prison which was blown up by the Germans in August 1944. During the construction, items from the rubble, including object grilles, hinges, locks and fittings, documents, equipment and items used by the prisoners were recovered.Monuments important to Pawiak also include: a pillar represents a part of the entrance gate, the Monument Tree of Pawiak (which is bronze copy of the famous elm, witness to its history - on which the victims' families since 1945 have placed the epitaph plates), concrete wall of sandstone blocks surrounding the grounds of the Museum, with symbolic sculptures by Tadeusza Łodziany and Stanisława Słoniny, as well a monument within the old prison courtyard: an obelisk by Zofii Pociłowskiej.In a reconstructed courtyard there are marble plaques at specific points and an entrance going down to the morgue from the street.On the other side of the avenue now named for John Paul II, crossing the former prison's grounds, is the site of the women's prison Serbia, where there is a plate commemorating the bravery and suffering of its prisoners.Since 1990, the Museum of Pawiak Prison, together with the Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom is a branch of the Museum of Independence in Warsaw.