Next Door to Pola Gojawiczyńska

Organised as part of the Year of Pola Gojawiczyńska in Mazovia, the exhibition presents the writer’s life in the interwar period, when she lived on Brzozowa Street.

The year 2026 marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Pola Gojawiczyńska, a native of Warsaw and an outstanding Polish novelist and short story writer with a close knowledge of working-class and lower middle-class circles, known above all as the author of the Warsaw duology Girls of Nowolipki and The Paradise Apple Tree. She was also an important figure in the literary life of the capital as it was rebuilt after the war.

Through stills from the 1937 film directed by Lejtes, Girls of Nowolipki, an adaptation of Gojawiczyńska’s novel of the same title, the museum shows the Warsaw of that time, and its poor districts in particular. It also recalls the hard years of the Second World War, showing through her work that period and the people with whom she shared its hardships. Special attention is given to the novel Krata, about the women prisoners of Pawiak, a book based on her own experience, as the writer herself was imprisoned there in 1943. The display presents items left by the writer and gathered by the museum: manuscripts and printed editions of her literary debuts.

What to expect

A temporary exhibition at the Museum of Literature’s main building on the Old Town Market Square (Rynek Starego Miasta 20), on until 31 December 2026. The museum does not say how many objects or rooms it covers, so treat it as part of a visit to the museum rather than a reason to cross town on its own. According to the museum, the display includes:

• stills from the 1937 film “Dziewczęta z Nowolipek” (Girls of Nowolipki), used to show pre-war Warsaw and its poorest districts;
• manuscripts and first printed editions of her early work from the museum’s collection;
• photographs, posters and many editions of her books;
• medals and decorations she received after the war;
• a separate thread on “Krata” (The Grille), her book about women held in Pawiak prison.

A leaflet on the writer accompanies the show. After the opening, curator Grażyna Ryfka led tours of it; the museum’s September programme lists no further date.

Context

Pola Gojawiczyńska (1896-1963) was born in Warsaw to a carpenter who kept a workshop on Nowolipki, the street that later gave its name to her best-known novel of 1935. She was one of the most widely read Polish novelists between the wars, writing about working-class and lower middle-class Warsaw; her novels were adapted for the screen, most recently by director Barbara Sass in 1985. In January 1943 she was arrested at her flat on Brzozowa Street and spent four months in the women’s wing of Pawiak, the prison the German occupiers ran in central Warsaw, an experience she described in “Krata” (1945).

Tickets and time

• Main building ticket: 20 PLN regular, 10 PLN reduced; groups of more than 10 pay 8 PLN each, Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny) holders 8 PLN. The price list has no separate ticket for temporary exhibitions.
• Free on Sundays: the museum says entry to the main building is free on Sunday. It does not say separately whether this covers temporary exhibitions, and it lists no exceptions.
• The museum lists free Wednesdays only for its branch museums (Broniewski, Dąbrowska, Strug); the Market Square building is free on Sundays.
• Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10:00-17:00 (10 AM - 5 PM), Thursday 12:00-20:00 (noon - 8 PM), closed Mondays. Last entry one hour before closing.
• Guided tour: 50 PLN, available to individual visitors as well as groups.
• How long: allow 60-90 minutes for the whole museum and fit this show into that, rather than skipping the permanent Mickiewicz galleries for it.
• English on site: the museum states nothing about English labels, audio guides or tours for this exhibition.

Who it is for: Polish readers who know “Girls of Nowolipki”, and visitors who can read Polish and want pre-war Warsaw seen from its tenement courtyards rather than its salons. Go on a Thursday evening or a free Sunday. A visitor with no Polish and no prior interest in the writer will get more from the permanent Mickiewicz exhibition in the same building, or from the neighbouring Parnassus of Warsaw show about the award the writer won twice.

Updates

• 2026-09-13 - end date confirmed: the museum’s monthly programmes from April to September 2026 all give the run as ending on 31.12.2026 (source: September 2026 programme, in Polish).

See also

• “The Parnassus of Warsaw. A Century of the Literary Award of the City of Warsaw” - opened the same evening in the same building; Gojawiczyńska won this award twice, in 1935 and 1949.
• The permanent exhibition “Adam Mickiewicz 1798-1855” - in the same building, so both fit into one visit.
• Pawiak Prison Museum - the prison she wrote about in “Krata”; it is closed for renovation, with reopening announced for autumn 2026.
• Caricature Museum - its Lengrenówka branch is on the same Brzozowa Street where Gojawiczyńska lived before the war, a short walk from the Market Square.

Museum profile: Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature.