Pawiak () was a

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

built in 1835 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, Congress Poland. During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. During the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

German occupation of Poland, it was used by the Germans, and in 1944 it was destroyed in the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

History

Pawiak Prison took its name from that of the street on which it stood, ''ulica Pawia'' ( Polish for "Peacock Street"). Pawiak Prison was built in 1829–35 to the design of Enrico Marconi and Fryderyk Florian Skarbek, prison reformer, godfather to composer

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...

, and ancestor of Krystyna Skarbek, the first woman to serve Britain as a special agent in the Second World War. During the 19th century, it was under tsarist control as Warsaw was part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. During that time, it was the main prison of central Poland, where political prisoners and criminals alike were incarcerated. During the January 1863 Uprising, the prison served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the Pawiak Prison became Warsaw's main prison for male criminals. (Females were detained at the nearby Serbia Prison.) Following the 1939 German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

, the Pawiak Prison became a German ''

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

'' prison. Approximately 100,000 people were imprisoned during the prison's operation, some 37,000 died on premises ( executed, under torture, or during detention), and 60,000 were transferred to

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

s. Large numbers of Jews passed through Pawiak and Serbia after the closure of the Warsaw Ghetto in November 1940 and during the first deportation in July to August 1942.History of the prison
- official website of the museum Exact numbers are unknown, as the prison archives were never found. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Pawiak Prison became a German assault base. Pawiak jailers, commanded by Franz Bürkl, volunteered to hunt the Jews. On 19 July 1944 a Ukrainian ''Wachmeister'' (guard) Petrenko and some prisoners attempted a mass jailbreak, supported by an attack from outside, but failed. Petrenko and several others committed suicide. The resistance attack detachment was ambushed and practically annihilated. The next day, in reprisal, the Germans executed over 380 prisoners. As Julien Hirshaut convincingly argues in ''Jewish Martyrs of Pawiak'', it is inconceivable that the prison-escape attempt was a Gestapo-initiated provocation. The Polish underground had approved the plan but backed out without being able to alert those in the prison that the plan was cancelled. The final transport of prisoners took place 30 July 1944, two days before the 1 August outbreak of the

. Two thousand men and the remaining 400 women were sent to Gross-Rosen and Ravensbrück. Subsequently the Polish insurgents captured the area but lost it to German forces. On 21 August 1944 the Germans shot an unknown number of remaining prisoners and burned and blew up the buildings. After World War II, the buildings were not rebuilt. Half of the gateway and three detention cells survive. Since 1990 a surviving basement has housed a museum which, with the Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom, forms the Museum of Independence.

Gallery

File:Warsaw ghetto ruins – place of mass executions at 27 Dzielna Street.jpg, Image:Pawiak 0013.JPG, Image:Pawiak 20080720 05.jpg, Image:Pawiak drzewo.JPG,

References

External links

History of the prison

'Pawiak - the Warsaw execution site' - collection of prisoners testimonies concerning Pawiak prison from 1939 to 1945
{{Coord, 52, 14, 47, N, 20, 59, 26, E, source:plwiki_region:PL_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Poland destroyed during World War II Defunct prisons in Poland Warsaw concentration camp Warsaw Uprising Holocaust locations in Poland Former buildings and structures in Warsaw World War II sites in Warsaw

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links