Pawiak Prison & the Bronze Elm Tree
Why is it significant?
Pass through the heavy entrance gate into the courtyard surrounded by high brick walls: in the center stands a dark, leafless tree cast entirely from bronze, its limbs laden with metal memorial plaques and tiny portraits.
Key Facts
| Place | Pawiak Prison & the Bronze Elm Tree |
|---|---|
| Address | ul. Dzielna 24/26, 00-162 Warszawa, Poland |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.24650, 20.99080 |
| Part of Walk | Lost World of Muranów: The Warsaw Ghetto, Resistance and Memory |
| Generated | Generated |
Pass through the heavy entrance gate into the courtyard surrounded by high brick walls: in the center stands a dark, leafless tree cast entirely from bronze, its limbs laden with metal memorial plaques and tiny portraits. Behind it rise the shattered foundations and iron cell doors of an exploded cellblock. This is Pawiak, the most dreaded prison complex in occupied Poland.
Built in the 1830s under tsarist rule by Italian architect Enrico Marconi, Pawiak was seized by the Gestapo in September 1939 and transformed into the main interrogation fortress of the General Government. Over one hundred thousand people passed through its underground cells during the occupation: underground couriers, scouts, ghetto fighters, university professors and hostages seized off tramcars. At least thirty-seven thousand prisoners were executed on site or in the pine forests of Palmiry; sixty thousand more were sent to concentration camps.
Located deep inside the ghetto boundaries, Pawiak was an isolated German island surrounded by barbed wire and sniper towers. From the barred upper windows, prisoners watched the night sky glow red as the ghetto burned in April 1943, listening to the crackle of distant rifles. In August 1944, as the Warsaw Uprising began, the SS executed all remaining inmates, doused the cellblocks in petrol and detonated explosive charges, reducing the prison to smoking ruins.
The only living thing to survive that cataclysm was an old elm tree standing in the inner exercise yard. For decades after the war, grieving families pressed thumbtacks into the bark with brass plaques bearing the names of sons, husbands and daughters whose graves were unknown. When the historic elm finally died of Dutch elm disease, the city cast an exact bronze replica to keep vigil forever in its place.
Exit the prison compound onto Dzielna street and walk south down Karmelicka towards Nowolipki street, where one of the greatest secrets of the war was buried.