Testimony of HELP - the Ulma family VR exhibition at the Central History Stop, Warsaw

“Testimony of HELP” (Świadectwo poMOCY) is an exhibition by the New Technology Division (Biuro Nowych Technologii) of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) about the Ulma family of Markowa and the Goldmans, Didners and Gruenfelds they hid. Its centrepiece is a short film watched in VR headsets, and after the screening photographs, dates and places lit by ultraviolet light appear on the walls of the installation. The exhibition is in the New Technology Zone of the IPN Central History Stop at Marszałkowska 107 (6 October 2026 - 21 December 2026); the official opening took place on 15 October.

The IPN New Technology Division on the exhibition (IPN’s own English text):

“Testimony of HELP” tells the story of the Blessed Ulma family from Markowa and the Jews they sheltered during the German occupation. The project, prepared by the New Technology Division of the Institute of National Remembrance, combines the advantages of a traditional exhibition - allowing visitors to explore physical elements of the display in person - with an immersive experience of history made possible by modern technologies. Visitors can not only see the exhibits but also experience the story presented as a film etude in virtual reality. Admission to the exhibition is free. It is on display at the Institute of National Remembrance’s Central History Point at 107 Marszałkowska Street in Warsaw.

What to expect

The visit begins before you go in. The black walls of the installation, uniform at first sight, turn out on closer inspection to be covered with hundreds of names of Poles who helped persecuted Jews during the Second World War. Inside stand wooden chairs, each with a VR set waiting on it: the regulations speak of 15 stations and of watching seated only.

The film leads you through spaces inspired by real 1940s interiors, set in a village in the Podkarpacie region, and tells the story from the perspective of six-year-old Basia, a daughter of the Ulmas. Archival photographs and documents are woven into the narrative. The exhibition draws on sources from the IPN Archive and on photographs from the album “Sprawiedliwi i ich świat. Markowa w fotografii Józefa Ulmy” (The Righteous and Their World. Markowa in the Photographs of Józef Ulma) by Mateusz Szpytma, IPN’s deputy president.

Once you take off the headset, the second part begins: photographs, dates, places and slogans lit by ultraviolet light, invisible before the screening, appear on the inner walls of the installation. The room is dark, with light and sound effects - worth bearing in mind if you are coming with someone sensitive to such stimuli.

A group has at most 15 people, and according to the regulations a turn usually lasts about half an hour. The exhibition is in the New Technology Zone; the immersive history lesson in the rest of the Zone requires booking in the Central History Stop’s reservation system, and the New Technology Division suggests combining it with the exhibition, including to fill the wait for your turn.

Part of the exhibition is also online: a gallery of archival photographs with descriptions, the exhibition space and a 360-degree version of the film. IPN’s channel IPNtvPL has this version of the film on YouTube in a Polish version and an English version; it runs 7 min 41 s. The New Technology Division points out that the online version is only part of the exhibition, and that only a visit gives you its full form and its physical space.

In a short reportage, the IPNtvPL channel shows the first screening of the project in Rzeszów on 9 September 2023, when the installation still stood in a mobile container.

Context

The Ulmas of Markowa, a Polish Catholic family, took in eight Jewish fugitives from the Goldman, Gruenfeld and Didner families, probably in the second half of 1942. On 24 March 1944 German gendarmes from the Łańcut post shot Józef, his wife Wiktoria, who was heavily pregnant, and their six children, among them six-year-old Barbara, and with them all the Jews they were hiding. In 1995 Józef and Wiktoria were posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal, and the family’s beatification ceremony took place in Markowa on 10 September 2023.

According to IPN, the date of the opening carries particular meaning: on 15 October 1941 Hans Frank issued the “Third Decree on Restrictions on Residence in the General Government”, which introduced the death penalty for Jews leaving the ghettos without permission and for Poles who helped them. At the opening, Mateusz Szpytma said that about a thousand Poles who rescued Jews died in the same way as the Ulmas. The Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II (Muzeum Polaków Ratujących Żydów podczas II wojny światowej) opened in Markowa in 2016.

The film was first shown in Rzeszów on 9 September 2023, on the eve of the beatification, and the installation was then on view for two weeks in a mobile container outside the local IPN branch. In autumn 2023 the film was released on Steam at no cost, fully voiced in Polish and English. In 2024 the project won bronze in the Immersive Experience category of the Eventex Awards, which drew 1,207 projects from 62 countries.

Tickets and time

• Where: the New Technology Zone of the IPN Central History Stop, on the first floor of the building at ul. Marszałkowska 107. Directions and the Stop’s opening hours are on the Central History Stop profile. Report to the reception before your turn.
• Ticket and booking: the admission terms are in the “Tickets and accessibility” box below. You register your visit at swiadectwopomocy.pl, choosing one of three options: an individual visit, a group visit or a school group visit. A group of more than 15 people books two or more consecutive slots. Without a booking you get in only if a place is free, and the staff decide, so it is better to sign up.
• Days and hours: these are set out in the exhibition’s visiting regulations; the organiser reserves the right to change them.
• How long: allow about three quarters of an hour. According to the regulations a turn usually lasts about half an hour; before it you report to the reception and staff help you fit the headset, and the booking system allows 45 minutes for a visit. If you add the immersive lesson in the New Technology Zone, you need a separate booking for it and more time.
• Who it’s for: young people aged 13 and over and adults, and schools, for which the booking system has a separate visit option. You will get the most out of it if you know the Ulmas’ story only in outline and want to see it through a child’s eyes rather than read it off panels.
• Children and consent forms: the VR screening is open to those aged 13 and over. A minor needs the written consent of a parent or legal guardian, and every participant signs a headset user’s declaration; both forms can be downloaded from the booking site and brought along filled in. Without the documents you cannot take part in the screening, although according to the regulations that need not keep you from the rest of the exhibition. Whether the content suits a child’s age is for the guardian to judge; with a child under 13 the exhibition loses its main element.
• Health: people with a history of epileptic seizures, heart or nervous-system disease or mental disorders, pregnant women and people with implanted medical devices should consult a doctor about using VR before the visit; people with those conditions and pregnant women also tell the staff before the screening. The headsets are not to be used when you are ill, very tired or feeling unwell, and you can stop the screening at any moment. After symptoms such as dizziness or nausea you should not drive until they pass - if you are coming by car, take this into account.
• Who can skip it: anyone who copes badly with VR headsets, darkness and light effects, because the screening is the main element of the exhibition and without it only the display part remains. Also anyone who is mainly looking for original objects: the regulations describe the display part as photographs and content revealed in UV light.
• Recording: recording the VR screening and copying exhibition materials is not allowed.
• What IPN does not say: how long the headset screening lasts and what language its soundtrack is in. Nor does it say whether staff help in English, whether there is step-free access to the first floor, or whether a child under 13 may enter the room with the group without taking part in the screening. The booking site and the regulations are in Polish only; in English, the New Technology Division describes the exhibition on its own page, under the title “Testimony of HELP”.

See also

• Central History Stop (IPN) - the profile of the venue at Marszałkowska 107, whose New Technology Zone houses the exhibition; directions and opening hours are there.
• What the Ringelblum Archive Means to Us - two display cases at the Jewish Historical Institute on how the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto was recovered and conserved after the war; a good next step for anyone whom the Ulmas’ story leads to the documents of the Holocaust.
• Szucha Avenue after W-Hour - an outdoor panel exhibition on the fence of the Museum of Pawiak Prison, on the al. Jana Pawła II side, about the Uprising story of the so-called Strasse der Polizei, the most closely guarded district of the German occupation, which included Szucha Avenue.

Museum profile: Central History Stop (IPN).