(phot. W. Kryński / Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN)

As mentioned, POLIN is the newly opened Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Rather than solely focusing on the Holocaust, POLIN explores the over 1,000 year history of Jews in Poland.

Did you know that of the 14 million Jews in the world, 9 million trace their ancestry to Poland?

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski declared during the grand opening of the Polin permanent exhibit: "It's impossible to understand the history of Poland without knowledge of the history of Polish Jews. The reason is not just the centuries of Jewish presence in Polish lands, but also the significant role played by the Jewish community in many spheres of Polish life: in economy, culture and in science. It is equally impossible to understand the history of Jews without knowledge of Polish history. The reason is not just the centuries of mutual diffusion of the Jewish and Polish worlds and not just the centuries of being neighbors, but also the fact that by the end the 18th century, when Poland was about to disappear from the maps, a vast majority of European Jews lived within its borders."