Muzeum Sue Ryder

What to expect

The Mokotow Toll Gate on pl. Unii Lubelskiej – one of two surviving tollhouse buildings designed by Jakub Kubicki between 1816 and 1818. Neoclassical, with Doric columns and a curved facade following the oval of the square. Once a checkpoint for collecting fees from those entering the city. Today it houses a museum about a woman who spent half a century helping people destroyed by war.

Important: the museum is temporarily closed due to repeated flooding and lack of funds for repairs. Check the current status before visiting.

Sue Ryder (1924-2000), from 1979 Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, was a British philanthropist who served in the Polish section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. She worked with the Cichociemni (the “Silent and Unseen” – Polish special forces parachuted into occupied Poland) and supported the Warsaw Uprising from London. After the war she did not forget. She founded a charity that from the 1940s ran over thirty care facilities across Poland – hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centres in Konstancin, Gdynia, Krakow, Psary, Popkowice. She organised trips to Britain for concentration camp survivors. She did all this under communism, without Polish government approval, with a stubbornness that irritated both sides of the Iron Curtain.

The exhibition (when open) tells the story of the foundation and its founder: documents, photographs, Sue Ryder’s personal memorabilia, materials from care facilities across Poland. The display connects the wartime thread (SOE, Cichociemni) with the humanitarian one (care homes, rehabilitation). The only museum in the world dedicated to Sue Ryder.

The Sue Ryder Foundation Poland manages the museum and archive. The Mokotow Toll Gate is listed as an immovable heritage monument.

Tips

• Temporarily closed. The museum suffered flood damage and requires renovation. Contact the foundation: 22 848 22 72 or fundacja@sueryderpolska.pl.
• Free entry (when open).
• Listed building, no wheelchair access – thresholds, narrow passages, no lift.
• Worth seeing the building from outside – the Mokotow Toll Gate is a rare example of Kubicki’s architecture, one of eighteen pairs of tollhouses of which only two survive.
• Across the square stands the second tollhouse (a mirror image), also a heritage monument.

Getting there

Metro: Politechnika (M1) – 800 m north, 9 minutes on foot.

Tram: Lines 10, 14, 16 – pl. Unii Lubelskiej or Goworka stop.

Bus: Lines 116, 138, 166, 187 – pl. Unii Lubelskiej stop (2 minutes).

By car: Parking is difficult – pl. Unii Lubelskiej is a busy roundabout. Underground car park in the Plac Unii shopping centre (entrance from ul. Pulawska).

Nearby museums

Pl. Unii Lubelskiej sits on the Mokotow-Srodmiescie border, within reach of several institutions. Museum of Cursed Soldiers and Political Prisoners (37 Rakowiecka Street, 1 km south – former Mokotow prison). PIG Geological Museum (4 Rakowiecka Street, 800 m south). To the north, toward the centre: National Museum (3 al. Jerozolimskie, 2 km – Poland’s main art museum).