Mauzoleum Walki i Męczeństwa

What to Expect

This is the real thing. No reconstruction, no replica, no artistic interpretation. The basement of the building at 25 Szucha Avenue was the interrogation center of the Nazi Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) and Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) during the German occupation of Warsaw, and it has been preserved almost exactly as it was between 1939 and 1944.

Your visit starts with a short multimedia projection — “Faces of the Tortured,” accompanied by an eternal flame and a five-minute recording about the history of this place (available in Polish, English, or German). Then you descend into the mausoleum proper. Four group cells, ten solitary cells, connecting corridors — all in near-original condition. The group cells were nicknamed “trams” by prisoners because the wooden benches arranged in two rows resembled seats in a streetcar. People sat on those benches waiting for interrogation — sometimes for hours, sometimes for days.

The most powerful element is the inscriptions. Over a thousand messages scratched into the walls, window frames, and floors of the cells — with fingernails, pencils, or charcoal. Patriotic verses, prayers, names, dates. On the wall of cell 6, a famous inscription reads: “It is easy to talk about Poland / Harder to work for her / Even harder to die for her / But hardest of all to suffer.” These inscriptions were conserved and deciphered during research in the 1960s, and they give this place a dimension that no designed exhibition could replicate.

A reconstructed Gestapo duty officer’s room contains a wooden beating bench, handheld torture implements, case files spread across a desk, a pistol, and a typewriter with an interrogation protocol still in the roller. Five short films are distributed throughout the mausoleum — including “The Will to Survive,” showing a prisoner rising from collapse — and four interactive terminals provide detailed historical presentations in Polish, English, and German.

The whole visit takes 30 to 45 minutes. The space is small, but per square meter, it carries more weight than almost any other museum in Warsaw.

Age restriction: visitors must be 14 or older. This is not arbitrary — the subject matter involves systematic torture, brutal interrogation, and death.

Tips

• Combined ticket with Pawiak Prison. One ticket covers both the Mausoleum and the Museum of Pawiak Prison (currently closed for renovation until autumn 2026). When Pawiak reopens, plan half a day for both sites.
• Free Thursdays. No admission charge, but expect school groups.
• Use the multimedia terminals. Four interactive stations offer detailed historical presentations with guided routes — in Polish, English, and German. The cells alone, without this context, don’t tell the full story.
• The entrance is not obvious. The building belongs to the Ministry of National Education. Enter through the main gate and turn left — the mausoleum is in the basement.
• No traditional audio guide. Unlike Pawiak Prison, there is no handheld audio guide. Context is provided through film projections and interactive terminals instead.
• Wear comfortable shoes. There is no seating in the cells — you stand and walk on concrete throughout.
• Don’t schedule something light right after. Many visitors say this place hits harder than Pawiak itself. Give yourself a moment.
• Tickets: 20 PLN standard / 10 PLN reduced (~5 EUR / ~2.50 EUR). Free on Thursdays.

Getting There

Metro: M1 line — Politechnika station, about an 8-minute walk west along al. Niepodleglosci and al. Szucha.

Tram: Plac Politechniki stop — lines 10, 14, 15. From there, roughly 600 m on foot via ul. Warynskiego and al. Szucha.

Bus: Lines 112, 116, 122 along al. Marszalkowska / Trasa Lazienkowska — get off near Plac Trzech Krzyzy and walk about 10 minutes. Line 501 stops closer, on al. Szucha itself.

Walking: From Lazienki Park — about 10 minutes (800 m) north. From the National Museum — about 12 minutes (1 km). From the city center (Palace of Culture) — about 25 minutes (2 km) south.

By car: Street parking in the area is scarce and expensive (paid parking zone). Public transport is the better option.

Nearby Museums

Background

The building at 25 Szucha Avenue was constructed during the interwar period to house the Ministry of Religious Beliefs and Public Education — a grand symbol of the newly independent Polish state.

Everything changed in October 1939. The Germans seized the building and turned it into the headquarters of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) — effectively the nerve center of occupation-era terror in Warsaw. The second and third floors housed Gestapo Department IV, divided into five sections covering everything from combating the Polish resistance to “Jewish affairs.” The entire avenue was closed to Polish civilians and functioned as a German police district.

In the basement, the Nazis established a detention facility. Ten solitary cells and four windowless group cells. Interrogation meant systematic brutality: beatings, kicking, attack dogs, cigarette burns, suspension by wrists bound behind the back, electric shocks. Prisoners’ screams were drowned out by a radio turned to full volume. Many died during or shortly after their interrogations. Prominent prisoners included Jan Piekalkiewicz (the Government Delegate — Poland’s clandestine civilian leader — who was tortured to death), Maciej Rataj (former Speaker of Parliament), Antoni Kocjan (aeronautics engineer and intelligence operative), and Irena Sendlerowa — who survived, though her legs and feet were broken, and went on to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, mass executions took place in the streets surrounding Szucha Avenue. After the war, over 5,500 kilograms of human ashes and bone fragments were recovered from the cellars of neighboring buildings and transferred to the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery.

In July 1946, the Polish government designated the site as a place of national martyrdom. The basement cells were to be kept untouched and converted into a museum. The mausoleum opened officially on 18 April 1952. During the 1960s, conservation research uncovered and preserved more than a thousand prisoner inscriptions. A 2008 modernization added multimedia projections, short films, and interactive terminals. Since 1990, the Mausoleum has operated as a branch of the Museum of Independence (Muzeum Niepodleglosci) in Warsaw.

The inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw reads: “PAWIAK – AL. SZUCHA 1939-1945” — binding both sites of suffering into a single act of remembrance.