The Workers' Defence Committee. Strength in Unity

Nineteen panels on the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR), which the museum calls the first open opposition organisation in communist Poland, stand on Krakowskie Przedmieście at the corner of Karowa Street. The exhibition has been on since 23 September 2026, fifty years to the day after KOR was founded, and stays until 14 October 2026.

The History Meeting House on the exhibition:

On 23 September 2026, exactly 50 years after the founding of the Workers’ Defence Committee and the publication of the “Appeal to Society and the Authorities of the Polish People’s Republic”, the second edition of an open-air exhibition devoted to the workers’ protests of June 1976 and the activity of KOR will open on Krakowskie Przedmieście, at the corner of Karowa Street.

The exhibition tells the story of one of the most important experiences of the Polish democratic opposition - from the revolt of the workers of Radom, Ursus and Płock in June 1976, through the founding of KOR in September of the same year, to the dissolution of the Committee during the First National Congress of the “Solidarity” trade union in September 1981.

It is the story of a civil society taking shape: organising help for the persecuted, breaking the state’s monopoly on information, independent printing and education, the work of the Intervention Bureau, cooperation with the Free Trade Unions and with the opposition in other countries of the Soviet bloc. It is also the story of people whose everyday, grassroots work prepared the ground for the mass social movement that “Solidarity” became.

What to expect

This is a street exhibition: 19 panels of archival photographs and documents, set up outdoors rather than in a gallery. According to the museum the panels also carry the voices of participants and witnesses, a timeline and short biographies of the members of KOR and of its successor, KSS “KOR”. The curators are Maria Krawczyk and Katarzyna Bizacka; the partner is the KARTA Centre Foundation. The show was first put up in 2016, and the museum calls this its second edition.

The panels run in order, from June 1976 to KOR’s dissolution in 1981 and beyond. Four worth stopping at, all named in the museum’s description:

• “Information centre” - Jacek Kuroń’s flat as the hub from which news of the repression reached Radio Free Europe and the BBC, among others.
• “Intervention Bureau” - Zofia and Zbigniew Romaszewski and their team documenting human rights abuses and organising help.
• “NOWa beyond censorship” - the Independent Publishing House, which the museum describes as the first publisher in the country to print outside state censorship.
• “The decade’s punchline” - former KOR members meeting at Kuroń’s home on 19 September 1986 to mark the Committee’s tenth anniversary.

A brochure accompanies the exhibition: the third, revised edition of a publication by the museum and the KARTA Centre Foundation. The museum does not say where it is available or what it costs.

Context

In June 1976 the communist government announced food price rises; workers in Radom, Ursus (then a town outside Warsaw, now one of its districts) and Płock answered with strikes and street protests, and the state answered with brutal repression, dismissals and trials. In September 1976 fourteen people signed an appeal founding the Workers’ Defence Committee, among them the activist Jacek Kuroń, the literary historian Jan Józef Lipski, the poet Stanisław Barańczak, the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski and the priest Jan Zieja. KOR raised money and found lawyers and doctors for the workers and their families, and in September 1977 it became the Committee for Social Self-Defence “KOR” (per Wikipedia and its Polish edition).

Its circle produced underground newsletters, the NOWa publishing house and the Flying University, a series of unofficial lectures. Wikipedia calls KOR a precursor and inspiration for Solidarity. If you know the Gdańsk shipyard strikes of August 1980 but not what came before them, these panels fill in the four missing years.

Tickets and time

• Dates: 23 September to 14 October 2026.
• Where: Krakowskie Przedmieście at the corner of Karowa Street, on the Royal Route between the Old Town and Nowy Świat. The museum’s own building is on the same street, at Karowa 20.
• Price and hours: the museum gives neither; the exhibition page says nothing about tickets or booking.
• How long: about 20-30 minutes for 19 panels if you read the captions. Double that if you want every biography.
• Combining it with the museum building: according to the museum’s exhibition list, nothing is on inside the building at Karowa 20 until 7 October - “Elliott Erwitt. Retrospective” closed on 20 September. The museum opens two new exhibitions there on 8 October, so between 8 and 14 October one trip covers the street panels and the shows indoors.
• English on site: the museum has published no English page for this exhibition and does not say whether the panels are bilingual. Plan on Polish only unless you find otherwise on the day.

Who it is for: anyone who wants half an hour’s orientation in how Poland’s opposition got from Radom to Solidarity, and anyone walking the Royal Route anyway. Skip it if you are after original objects: these are panels of photographs and documents, not display cases.

What the press says

As of 23 September 2026, the opening day, no review had appeared. It was announced in February, when the anniversary programme was launched, under the working title “KOR. Siła w jedności”. No English-language coverage could be found; the two announcements are in Polish:

• Informator Stolicy (24.02.2026, compiled by IS): the Warsaw news site listed the exhibition as the September item in the year-long anniversary programme, alongside the June open-air show “Niepokorne 1976-1989” on women in the opposition - Warsaw celebrates the 50th anniversary of KOR
• um.warszawa.pl (23.02.2026, unsigned): the website of the City of Warsaw, which initiated the anniversary programme, announced that the exhibition would open on the 50th anniversary of the Appeal - 50th anniversary of the Workers’ Defence Committee

Updates

• 2026-09-23 - the exhibition opened; the museum moved it to its “Current exhibitions” list with the dates 23.09-14.10.2026 (source: museum’s exhibition list, in Polish)

See also

• The ’80s Look at Us - one of two shows the museum opens on 8 October 2026, running until 21 February 2027: women’s lives in 1980s Poland. Between 8 and 14 October you can see both on the same day, on the same street.
• Photocopy and Hand Out! Zines and the Independent Press in Poland During the Transition - Caricature Museum, until 15 November 2026: what grew out of the underground press these panels describe.
• Freedom Is Within Us - Museum of Cursed Soldiers on Rakowiecka Street: martial law and internment inside a real prison wing, the chapter that the panel on KOR members after the Committee only touches on.
• “AHM o KOR” (in Polish) - the museum’s series of recordings with KOR members and collaborators from its Oral History Archive, published until December 2026: the same events in the participants’ own voices.

Museum profile: History Meeting House.