POLIN Museum was established to document, preserve, and pass on to future generations the knowledge and history of Polish Jews across different periods and geographical regions. We expand our collection thanks to your donations—objects and stories, including memorabilia, photographs, documents, and oral accounts. Each contribution, whether in its original or digital form, serves as a unique testimony to the world of Polish Jews.
We encourage you to share with us your memories, photos, and items that tell your family's story. You can support our mission in various ways, each equally valuable:
Donating an item to our collection →
If you would like to contribute an object to our museum collection, please contact the Collection Department at [email protected] or call (+48) 22 47 10 326 / (+48) 22 37 93 715. Museum curators will review your message and follow up via email or phone.
The decision about admission to the collection is taken during the meetings of the Acquisition Commission. If we are interested, we will advise you further steps related to accepting the item into the POLIN Museum's collection. As part of the entire process, relevant documents need to be signed: a donation agreement signed by the management board of the Museum and a gift transfer protocol.
We also encourage collectors and artists who own works of art related to the Jewish heritage in Poland to contact us.
If you prefer to keep your memorabilia, you may opt to contribute to our digital collection instead.
Sharing digital materials →
If you would like to provide family archive materials in digital form (scans, photographs, audio, or video recordings) for our digital collection, please email [email protected]. We will offer guidance and technical support as needed. You are also welcome to bring documents and photographs to us for digitization.
Recording an oral history interview →
Capturing your family’s story through an oral history interview is a meaningful way to preserve the past. We can record your or a loved one's testimony as part of our Museum's oral history collection. Interviews can take place at the POLIN Museum studio in Warsaw or remotely via the internet. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Donating a book to the Museum Library →
If you are interested in donating a book to the Museum Library, please contact us in advance via email at: [email protected]. We would appreciate it if you could include the book’s bibliographic details, a photo showing its condition, and a description of its provenance in your message. The procedure for accepting books published up to and including 1945 takes longer, as it requires approval from the Acquisitions Committee, which meets once a month. Once a donation is approved, a contract must be signed. As a general rule, the POLIN Museum Library does not accept duplicate copies.
Thank you for helping us keep history alive.
