Muranów is unique on the map of Warsaw: the Northern Quarter inhabited mainly by the Jewish population, it was a home to the largest Jewish community in Europe before WW2. Transformed into the largest Jewish ghetto in occupied Europe during the war, it was then razed to the ground along with its residents. The planners who reconstructed the Polish capital after wartime destruction built a new Modernist estate here—on the rubble and of the rubble—which was settled by people from all over Warsaw and Poland.
The twenty-one essays allow us to take a peek into the city’s entrails. They reveal the multi-layered history of Muranów from its very beginning until today by looking at the district from the point of view of history, archaeology, sociology, psychology, architecture and nature. They tell the tale of its residents—both those from the past and those who live here today.
The publication accompanies the exhibition Here Is Muranów at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.