Pawiak Prison Museum in Warsaw: History, and the 2026 Rebuilding Closure

Note: the museum is closed. Since 27 February 2026 the Pawiak Prison Museum has been shut to visitors for a roof rebuild and replacement of technical installations. The Museum of Independence gives autumn 2026 as the probable completion date - while warning it may extend - and posts progress updates on its site.

The prison

From March 1940, Pawiak served as the investigative prison of the Security Police and SD for the Warsaw district - above all of its Section IV, the Gestapo. The museum calls it the largest political prison in occupied Poland: an estimated 100,000 prisoners passed through between 1939 and 1944. About 37,000 were executed, murdered during interrogations at the Gestapo headquarters on aleja Szucha or in the cells, or died in the prison hospital; some 60,000 were deported to concentration camps, most to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Resistance and destruction

Pawiak's prison conspiracy cell, linked to the Home Army, enabled famous rescue and retaliation operations: the Arsenal action of 26 March 1943 freed Jan Bytnar Rudy and other prisoners being driven from aleja Szucha, and on 1 February 1944 the Home Army assassinated SS and Police Leader Franz Kutschera, responsible for public executions in Warsaw. As the front approached, the Germans sent the last transport out on 30 July 1944, murdered remaining prisoners in mid-August, and on 21 August 1944 blew up the prison buildings.

When it reopens

The museum - at Dzielna 24/26 - normally opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00-17:00, with free admission on Thursdays; tickets are 20 zloty (10 reduced). The parent Museum of Independence at al. Solidarnosci 62 and its other branches remain open.