Doctors of the Ujazdów Hospital in the Katyń Graves

The Museum of Independence hosts an exhibition prepared by the Stanisław Konopka Main Medical Library, dedicated to the doctors of the Ujazdów Hospital murdered in the Katyń massacre. It commemorates around 600 Polish officer-physicians killed by the NKVD in 1940, under the Kremlin order of 5 March. This is not a show about numbers - it works to restore the biographies and faces of specific people.

The opening is on Tuesday, 14 July 2026 at 15:00, and the exhibition runs until 30 September 2026. It is co-organized by the Katyń Museum and the Museum of Independence.

Tickets, opening hours, and the programme of accompanying events are on the Museum of Independence website.

What to expect

This is a panel exhibition, not a room of original objects. According to a report from the opening, it consists of 14 panels telling the life stories of the doctors, with reproductions of documents from the Main Medical Library and the Katyń Museum. The script is by Katarzyna Słojkowska and Rafał E. Stolarski. Reading every panel properly takes 20-30 minutes, so treat it as an add-on to a visit to the palace rather than a trip of its own.

The panels follow 11 doctors, among them:

• Colonel Jan Nelken, a psychiatrist - one panel shows his letter to his wife Irena, written on 20 November 1939 in the Kozelsk prison camp;
• Colonel Stefan Mozołowski and Major Stefan Pieńkowski, both neurologists;
• Lieutenant Colonel Henryk Millak, a bacteriologist;
• Colonel Antoni Szwojnicki, a paediatrician.

The Museum of Independence has added a painting from its own collection: “Victim of the Soviets - the Katyń Massacre” by Marcin Belof (1966-1990), a Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts student whose grandfather was among the victims.

Context

Ujazdów Hospital was Poland’s oldest and largest military hospital. It grew up from the late 18th century around the former royal castle at Ujazdów, just south of today’s city centre, and was dissolved in January 1945. In spring 1940 the Soviet NKVD shot nearly 22,000 Polish citizens, among them prisoners of war held in the camps at Kozelsk, Starobilsk and Ostashkov; many were reserve officers who were doctors, scientists or teachers in civilian life.

The museum puts the number of murdered army doctors at about 600, with at least 305 held at Kozelsk and at least 288 at Starobilsk. The Main Medical Library, which made the exhibition, was founded in 1945 by Stanisław Konopka. Its Old Medical Books Department works in one of the surviving pavilions of the old hospital at Jazdów 1A.

Tickets and time

• Where: the Przebendowski/Radziwiłł Palace, al. Solidarności 62, the museum’s main building - a baroque palace standing between the two carriageways of a main east-west avenue, about 5 minutes’ walk from Ratusz-Arsenał metro station (line M1).
• When: until 30 September 2026 (a Wednesday), Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-17:00 (10 AM - 5 PM), closed on Mondays.
• Ticket: the museum’s price list gives one admission ticket, 20 PLN full and 10 PLN reduced, and lists no separate ticket for this exhibition. Holders of the Polish Large Family Card pay 1 PLN; children under 7 enter free.
• Free entry: every Thursday, with a free ticket. Two Thursdays remain before the show closes: 17 and 24 September. Online tickets: the museum’s ticket shop.
• How long: 20-30 minutes for this exhibition; the palace’s permanent galleries need about another hour.
• Who it is for: visitors interested in the history of medicine, in the Katyń massacre, or tracing a family member. The museum’s announcement says nothing about English texts, so check at the ticket desk before you count on them. Not for young children, and not for anyone expecting original artefacts - this is a show you read.

On Thursday 17 September at 13:00 the same palace hosts a lecture in the museum’s Wszechnica Kościuszkowska series, ‘17 września - znamienna data w naszych dziejach’ (17 September - a significant date in our history), on the date the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939. It is a sensible day to combine both, with free entry.

What the press says

• Gość Warszawski (16 July 2026, Zofia Grabowska): the Catholic weekly’s Warsaw edition reports on the opening, describes the 14 panels, names all 11 doctors and singles out Jan Nelken’s letter from Kozelsk as a particularly valuable document - warszawa.gosc.pl
• Polish Radio for Abroad, “Magazyn Redakcji Polskiej” (24 July 2026, hosted by Katarzyna Semaan): the final part of this Polish-language programme features one of the exhibition’s co-authors as a guest - polskieradio.pl

See also

• Katyń Museum in the Warsaw Citadel - the only museum devoted entirely to the Katyń massacre, partner of this exhibition and the source of some of its documents.
• Old Medical Books Department of the Main Medical Library - the exhibition’s organiser, housed in a building of the former Ujazdów Hospital; its collections are open with the library director’s permission.
• Museum of Independence - in the same building, the “Borderlands and Beyond” galleries cover deportations and Katyń in more depth than the panels.

Museum profile: Museum of Independence.