On the Day of Remembrance for the Civilian Population of the Warsaw Uprising, the Chamber of Remembrance was opened at the Warsaw Insurgents’ Cemetery. It is intended to bring back the memory of the dead Varsovian citizens and to be a place for reflection on the consequences of violence, radicalism and armed conflict.

It was opened by Wanda Traczyk-Stawska – a soldier of the Home Army, member of the Grey Ranks, and participant in the Warsaw Uprising.

“There are 104,000 105 people lying in this cemetery, and this Chamber of Remembrance is to be their voice. It is to cry out to the whole world: never again war. Never again. We cannot allow that the weakest people, the civilian population, are murdered. The soldier has a weapon, but the civilians have only their voices. That is why I call out to the entire civilian population: demand peace and help Ukraine to avoid a third world war”, Traczyk-Stawska appealed during the ceremony.

The site dedicated to the victims of the Warsaw Uprising consists of two pavilions and a Wall of Remembrance, which will feature more than 62,000 brass plaques with the names of victims of the Warsaw Uprising, both civilians and soldiers, as well as blank plaques to which more names will be inscribed as research progresses.

The main Chamber building is divided into a Hall of History and a Hall of Testimonies. The Hall of History will serve to present the fate of the Warsaw Insurgents’ Cemetery, the largest war necropolis in Poland, from 1945 to the present day.

The Hall of Testimonies will house a temporary exhibition that will present the places of extermination of the city’s residents and soldiers of the Uprising. In the future, it will house a multimedia installation by Krzysztof Wodiczko. The world-renowned visual artist, lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and art theorist will create a unique audiovisual work based on many hours of conversations with survivors of the Warsaw Uprising.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński