by Xinhua writers Yue Yuanyuan, Guo Shuang
WARSAW, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Standing before handwritten letters and old photographs at the Warsaw Rising Museum, 20-year-old university student Zosia Selwod found that the history she had learned in school suddenly felt much closer.
"The letters written by wartime scouts to their families brought tears to my eyes," she said. "The photographs and other visual materials impressed me most."
Selwod traveled from Wroclaw to Warsaw with a friend on Aug. 1 for events marking the 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. It was her first visit to the museum, where crowds of visitors, including many families with children, moved through the exhibitions.
She had learned about the uprising in primary and secondary school, but said the museum offered far more details and gave a human dimension to the history presented in textbooks.
For Selwod, visiting such places is a way to help preserve the past and appreciate the small things in everyday life. "We should continue talking about it and visiting places like this," she said.
Selwod hopes to become an English teacher. Though she does not plan to teach history, she believes stories from the past should continue to be shared with younger generations.
That is also part of the daily work of Julia Matusiak Pajkowska, a guide who has worked at the Warsaw Rising Museum for five years.
The museum has remained popular since opening 22 years ago, she said. During the school year, groups of children and teenagers regularly visit the museum, while the anniversary draws even larger crowds.
When speaking to children, guides adapt the story to their age. Rather than dwelling on its most distressing aspects, they focus on courage, hope and ordinary people's longing for a normal life.
Pajkowska said they can show young children "why history is important and why it is worth learning."
For her, guiding visitors is never simply a repetition of dates and facts.
"It is not only about weapons or destruction. It is about people and their experiences," she said. Although she has told some stories countless times, they still affect her, particularly because every group is different and some visitors are hearing them for the first time.
Pajkowska often reminds young visitors that they may be among the last generation able to meet people who personally experienced the uprising.
They may pass an elderly woman on her way to buy bread without realizing that a photograph of her in her youth hangs inside the museum, Pajkowska said.
Such encounters, she added, help young people understand that those in the photographs are not distant historical figures, but ordinary people who once walked on the same streets.
While the Warsaw Rising Museum presents a concentrated account of the uprising, the Museum of Warsaw, located in the city's Old Town, preserves the past through objects, buildings and individual stories accumulated over centuries.
Mateusz Korol, an exhibition staff member at the Museum of Warsaw, pointed to letters, cards and small personal belongings displayed in the museum. Some objects were made by mothers for their children during wartime. Modest in appearance, they retain the warmth of family bonds amid difficult circumstances.
"Many people come with friends or family to discover the history together," Korol said.
The museum building is itself part of that history. Original architectural elements, including parts of old walls, cellars and painted ceilings, have survived, while paintings and sculptures preserved from other Old Town houses have also found a home there.
Korol described the museum as "a capsule of Old Town life" in the heart of the market square.
In this way, remembrance takes many forms. It can be a guide recounting a personal story, a parent showing a child an old photograph, or family members standing together before a small object and filling in the gaps in one another's knowledge.
On each anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, that remembrance extends beyond museum walls and into Warsaw's streets.
At 5 p.m., the "W Hour" marking the start of the 1944 uprising, sirens sound across the city. Traffic comes to a halt and people stand in silence for one minute.
For 21-year-old Warsaw resident Maciek Hadala, this year was the first time he had deliberately joined the crowds to experience the moment.
He had heard the sirens in previous years while working or going about his day, but this time his mother suggested that the family attend together.
Hadala first learned about the uprising from his parents and school textbooks. Standing with his family and strangers in the city center, however, turned that knowledge into a shared experience.
"The moment may be brief, but by standing here together, we, as a new generation, can remember the past and keep its memory alive," he said. ■