10th Anniversary of the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo
On 16 December 2025, the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo will celebrate its 10th anniversary. The institution was established on 16 December 2015 as a branch of the Stutthof Museum in Sztutowo – the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp from 1939 to 1945. The museums mission is to spread knowledge about the martyrdom of the Nazi crime of Piaśnica in connection with the Nazi crimes in Pomerania. The museum preserves the memory of the victims; lives and exposes the perpetrators. It serves history, the present and the future by preserving evidence of the tragic past and presenting it to today and increasingly younger generations.
The renovation and construction work related to the redesign of the building lasted until December 2022. In August 2023, work was completed on the installation of the permanent exhibition, which was carried out by the Group AV company from Warsaw. The total cost of both tasks amounted to approximately 26 million zloty. The total exhibition area of the museum is 270 m². The advantages of the Piaśnica Museum include the richly equipped exhibition with trilingual multimedia elements, a comprehensive security monitoring system and, from 2025, a digital audio guide for individual visitors in Polish, English and German, as well as in Polish sign language. The ground floor of the building and the memorial garden are fully accessible to people with disabilities. From December 2015 to the end of September 2024, Teresa Patsidis was deputy director of the Stutthof Museum for the Piaśnica Museum.
The initiative to establish the Piaśnica Museum was launched by the ‘Rodzina Piaśnicka’ (Piaśnica Family) association in Wejherowo, which submitted a corresponding application to the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland on 20 June 2012. A few months earlier, in 2011, the ‘Rodzina Piaśnicka’ association had succeeded in getting the investigation into the crimes in the Piaśnica Forest reopened by the Department for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish People of the Institute of National Remembrance in Gdańsk. Also in 2011, the association began construction of the monumental memorial mausoleum ‘Brama Piaśnicka’ (Piaśnica Gate) on Grunwaldzki Square in front of the future museum, which was officially inaugurated on 19 April 2012.
The historic building of Dr Franciszek Panek's villa was chosen as the museum's location, whose heirs – Mrs Zofia and Krzysztof Ostrowski – declared their willingness to use this historic house for the purposes of a museum facility related to the martyrdom of Piaśnica to Father Daniel Nowak, parish priest of Christ the King and Blessed Alicja Kotowska in Wejherowo, chaplain of the association and custodian of the sanctuary of Piaśnica. During the Second World War, the Germans set up a district office of the Gestapo and the Selbstschutz (self-defence organisation) in the occupied Panek family villa, as well as the local headquarters of the criminal extermination operation, while Dr Panek's two daughters – teachers Kazimiera and Stanisława – were murdered in the Piaśnica forest. On 23 December 2015, the Stutthof Museum in Sztutowo purchased the villa for 2.4 million zlotys for the needs of the future Piaśnica Museum.
The museum is a co-organiser of the most important religious and patriotic celebrations in the Piaśnica Forest, the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of German Crimes in Pomerania in 1939, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Extermination of People with Mental Disorders in Occupied Poland during World War II, the European Night of Museums, the ‘Days of Piaśnica of the Wejherowo Community’ as well as the campaign ‘Don't let memory grow overgrown – clean the grave next door’ and the nationwide school poetry competition ‘Piaśnica – Culture of the Place’.
The museum offers exhibitions on the ground floor that are accessible to all ages: The Establishment of the Second Republic of Poland, The History of the Coastal District, The Fate of the Panek Family, People of Polish Statehood in Pomerania – Victims of the Piaśnica Forest. In the basement area, which is accessible to visitors over the age of 13, nine rooms present the motifs and history of the Nazi crimes of Piaśnica, its victims and perpetrators, as well as memorial sites. In front of the museum building is the memorial garden with a permanent exhibition on the theme of the ‘Interwar Period’.
In two cinema halls, you can watch historical educational films, documentaries and feature films: The Second Polish Republic in the Making, The Birth of Evil, The Defence of the Coast, The Postmen, Sister Alicja Kotowska, Dr Józef Bednarz, Pelplin, Szpęgawsk Part 1, Szpęgawsk Part 2, Kocborowo – the extermination of the mentally ill, as well as the films Piaśnica in Polish and English.
The museum conducts museum lessons for different age groups: Polish Pomerania in the Interwar Period, The Second Republic Under Construction and The Mechanism of Crime. Temporary exhibitions are also made available from the museum's collections: The Museum of Piaśnica, Thoughts from Piaśnica, Death for Independence, Adam Kozłowski – Prosecutor in the Service of the Second Republic, Wilhelm Tyszkowski (1878-1939) Teacher and Artist in the Service of Independence, and Kazimierz Bieliński (1897-1939) Founder of the Energy Industry in Gdynia.
In 2025, the museum entered into close cooperation with the ‘Rodzina Piaśnicka’ (Piaśnica Family) association in Wejherowo as a supporting member and established the Piaśnica Museum Support Association. Work is currently underway to set up the public Piaśnica reading room in the so-called ‘club room’ on the ground floor.
Over the last ten years, a total of 37 people have worked at the museum. The team currently consists of:
- Head of Department Dr Magdalena Sacha,
- Administration Specialist Katarzyna Bieszke,
- Curator Maciej Kurpiewski,
- Assistant Dariusz Bąkowski,
- Assistant Lucyna Kurpiewska,
- Assistant Mirosław Lademann,
- Chief Administration and Technology Specialist Stanisław Skierka,
- Technical Specialist Janusz Kalkowski,
- Social Worker Karolina Sulima.
The museum's social media and website administrator is Nina Herzberg-Zielezińska, and the internet technician is Łukasz Bark. Round-the-clock surveillance of the museum buildings is carried out by employees of the security company Semerling Security.
The Piaśnica Museum welcomes all guests and visitors – individuals and groups – from Tuesday to Sunday: in summer, from April to November, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and in winter, from 12 November to 31 March, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).
Group visits can be arranged by telephone on +48 (58) 736-11-26 or by email at
Admission to the museum is free for everyone.
