Unimaginable. The Void After the Great Synagogues

The Great Synagogue of Warsaw, the New Synagogue of Breslau (today Wrocław), the New Synagogue of Tarnów: these buildings now survive only as engravings, photographs and plans. The Galicia Jewish Museum has gathered them from 13 Polish cities. The exhibition page gives 31 August 2026 as the closing date, yet the museum is still running tours of it in October, so check that it is open before you go.

Galicia Jewish Museum on the exhibition (the museum’s own English text):

We invite you to an exhibition dedicated to the monumental synagogues built mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in a variety of styles ranging from Neo-Gothic to Moorish.

The exhibition draws attention to the scale of destruction of pre-war monuments of sacred architecture. The reasons for the annihilation of these remarkable buildings were hatred and violence - hatred toward everything Jewish, and violence against people and their material culture. Destroyed and - from today’s perspective - unimaginable, these beautiful, monumental synagogues were never rebuilt after World War II.

Bringing together examples from 13 cities across Poland, the exhibition serves both as a commemoration and as an act of education about a heritage lost forever. Opening the exhibition on the 86th anniversary of the burning of the Great Synagogue in Oświęcim - an event that took place on the night of November 29-30, 1939 - is a deliberate gesture shifting the focus from the date of violence to an act of remembrance.

What to expect

This is a show of documents, not objects. The Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported from the opening on 30 November 2025 that it is built from surviving engravings, photographs, building plans and old city maps. PAP named the curators as Anna Wencel and Jagoda Wójcicka. The museum’s own page names no one, but most of its curator-led tours are given by Jagoda Wójcicka.

PAP listed six of the buildings from the 13 cities and the dates they were destroyed:

• the New Synagogue in Szczecin (then Stettin) and the New Synagogue in Wrocław (then Breslau) - 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht;
• the New Synagogue in Tarnów - 9 November 1939;
• the Great Synagogue in Oświęcim - the night of 29-30 November 1939;
• the New Synagogue in Częstochowa - 25 December 1939;
• the Great Synagogue in Warsaw - 16 May 1943.

The museum does not publish the full list of cities online. The project is co-financed by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Krakow.

Between February and September the museum ran more than a dozen free curator-led tours of the show, usually once or twice a month; the latest was on 27 September. It also held a family workshop, “Synagogues of the Imagination” (Synagogi z wyobraźni), on 22 February and 23 August. There was also a walk to Krakow’s lost prayer houses on 15 February and a session in Ukrainian, “What is a synagogue?”, on 16 March.

Context

Oświęcim is the Polish town the Germans renamed Auschwitz. Its Great Synagogue was rebuilt by Carl Korn in 1899-1900; after the fire of November 1939 the ruins were cleared in 1941. Excavations in 2004 recovered some 400 pieces of its furnishings, and since 2019 the site has been a memorial park.

The Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street in Warsaw, designed by Leandro Marconi and opened in 1878, was then the largest Jewish house of worship in the world. SS general Jürgen Stroop had it blown up on 16 May 1943 to mark the end of the Ghetto Uprising; an office tower, the Blue Skyscraper, has stood on the site since the 1980s. Breslau’s New Synagogue, designed by Edwin Oppler in 1872, was one of the largest in the German Empire and was destroyed on Kristallnacht.

Tickets and time

Is the show still on? The exhibition page gives the run as 30 November 2025 to 31 August 2026. The museum’s events calendar says otherwise: a curator-led tour took place on 27 September and another is announced for 14 October. No new closing date has been published, so call (+48 12 421 68 42) or email recepcja@galiciajewishmuseum.org before you travel.

Do you need a separate ticket? The museum does not sell one. Its price list has only general admission: 35 PLN, 25 PLN for seniors and students, 55 PLN for a family; children aged 6 and under go free. PAP wrote at the opening that entry to the show was free, but the museum does not confirm this anywhere on its website. Ask at reception before buying a full ticket just for this show. The museum lists no free-admission day. It honours ICOM cards, the Krakow Tourist Card and Hop On Hop Off tickets.

Hours. The practical information page gives every day, 10:00-18:00 (10 AM-6 PM). The museum’s newsletter adds that it closes on Yom Kippur and at Christmas. The building has no stairs.

How long. Allow 20-30 minutes for the show, an hour and a half to two hours with the permanent exhibition “Traces of Memory”.

English on site: the museum states that the exhibition is presented in Polish and English. The curator-led tours are in Polish.

Best for visitors interested in architecture and urban history, and anyone with family roots in Szczecin, Wrocław, Tarnów or Częstochowa who wants to know what once stood on a familiar street. Teachers will find a ready-made lesson on the scale of the loss. Skip it if you are after original Judaica and historic interiors: the Old Synagogue on Szeroka Street has those.

Events

• 14 Oct 2026, 17:00 - curator-led tour in Polish with Jagoda Wójcicka; free entry, limited places, a free ticket must be downloaded from the museum’s website - details

What the press says

No reviews found as of 4 October 2026. Two news reports from the opening, both in Polish:

• PAP, Polish Press Agency (30 Nov 2025, rgr), republished on dzieje.pl: an opening report quoting the curators and listing six of the synagogues with the dates of their destruction - link .
• Oświęcim Online (3 Dec 2025, editorial team): the local news site in Oświęcim covers the show through the town’s own synagogue, whose anniversary set the opening date - link .

See also

• Galicia Jewish Museum - the permanent exhibition “Traces of Memory”: photographs of what survived the war, including a synagogue turned into a warehouse - the second chapter of the same story.
• Intersections. Papercuts by Anna Wencel - the museum’s other temporary show, until 31 December 2026: contemporary papercuts by Anna Wencel, named by PAP as co-curator of “Unimaginable”.
• Old Synagogue - two to three minutes’ walk: a synagogue the Germans used as a warehouse, rebuilt in 1956-1959 - the opposite fate to the buildings in this show.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Galicia Jewish Museum website .

Museum profile: Galicia Jewish Museum .