Palmiry Memorial Site Museum

What to expect

One thing first: this museum is NOT in Warsaw. Palmiry is a clearing in the Kampinos Forest, in the rural municipality of Czosnów, roughly 30 km (19 miles) northwest of the city centre. We include it in this guide anyway, because it is formally a branch of the Museum of Warsaw and it tells a story inseparable from the city: this is where the Germans secretly executed prisoners brought from Warsaw’s Pawiak prison during World War II.

The permanent exhibition documents the executions carried out in Palmiry and the Kampinos Forest in 1939-1943 and the postwar exhumations of 1945-1948, after which the victims were laid to rest in the cemetery-mausoleum adjoining the museum. Two central sections - “Executions 1939-1943. Palmiry-Kampinos Forest” and “Exhumations - the Palmiry cemetery 1945-1948” - set out lists of names, the dates of successive executions, and biographies of selected victims. The display cases hold personal mementos, German death certificates, copies of the underground “Biuletyn Informacyjny” newspaper from 1940-1941, objects recovered during the exhumations that made identification possible, family correspondence, and Red Cross documents. The case lighting deliberately evokes grave candles.

The building itself is worth the trip. A modern pavilion by architects Szczepan Wroński and Wojciech Conder (opened on 5 April 2011, 1,100 square metres), it lets the forest inside: birch trees grow in four glass tubes commemorating the execution sites, and the glazed walls open onto the cemetery. A 2023 refurbishment replaced the display cases and upgraded the audio for witness-testimony recordings.

Like the Katyń Museum or the Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom, this is a memorial museum about a wartime atrocity - it calls for quiet attention and is not a place for young children.

Tips

• Tickets are symbolic: full price 5 PLN, reduced 3 PLN, groups of 10+ pay 3 PLN per person, family ticket (2 adults + 1-6 children) 10 PLN. At roughly 4.3 PLN/EUR that is about 1.20 EUR full price. Visitors with disabilities enter free. Online tickets: bilety.muzeumwarszawy.pl.
• Hours change with the season: April 1 to November 1 it is open 10:00 AM-6:00 PM, November 2 to March 31 it is 9:00 AM-4:00 PM. Always Tuesday-Sunday; closed Mondays.
• Walk the cemetery. The mausoleum of the victims adjoins the museum; a platform lift connects the building with the cemetery for wheelchair users, and there is an accessible toilet.
• Plan half a day. Getting here from central Warsaw takes 45-60 minutes each way - treat it as an excursion, not a stop between two other museums.
• Guided tours and museum lessons are booked by phone: +48 22 277 44 94.

Getting there

Address: ul. Droga Palmirska 1, 05-152 Czosnów - in the Kampinos Forest, outside Warsaw’s city limits. There is no metro or tram; this is a genuine countryside trip.

By bus: suburban line 800 from Warsaw - note that it does not run in winter.

By car: the easiest option. Take national road 7 (direction Gdańsk) and follow the Palmiry exit; there is a large free-standing car park in front of the building.

By bike: a pleasant forest ride; the museum even lists Warsaw’s Veturilo bike-share as an option for the determined.

On foot: forest paths lead in via the villages of Truskaw or Sieraków - a good choice if you are combining the visit with a hike in Kampinos National Park.

Nearby museums

The closest museums are back in Warsaw proper, so “nearby” is relative - but these pair naturally with Palmiry thematically.

Nearby museums

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