Muzeum Walki i Męczeństwa „Palace” w Zakopanem, World War II resistance museum in Zakopane, Poland
The Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom is located in Zakopane and focuses on the resistance movement during World War II in the mountain region. The exhibition displays artifacts, documents, and photographs from the period of occupation in this area.
The museum was founded in 1994 in a former palace building to commemorate the work of local partisans. It documents the underground movement against German occupation in the Tatra Mountains.
The museum occupies the cellars of the 1930 hotel Palace, where the Gestapo ran the "Katownia Podhala" torture chamber. Inmates included ski champion Bronisław Czech, guide Stanisław Marusarz, Helena Marusarzówna, Blessed Piotr Dańkowski and Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose life Maximilian Kolbe took upon himself at Auschwitz. Some prisoners' inscriptions survive on the walls.
The museum occupies the cellars of the former Hotel Palace at 7 Chałubińskiego Street in Zakopane. It is open year-round on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and admission is by voluntary donation.
The basement rooms hold inscriptions left by prisoners on the walls, some of which survived the 1999 reconstruction that destroyed others. Among those held here were ski jumper Bronisław Czech, guide Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek and Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose life Maximilian Kolbe took his place for at Auschwitz.
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