News

An accidental find on a Warsaw housing estate sparked a series of events that resulted in an instrument, originated in Oflag VII A Murnau, found its way to the Museum's collection.

The violin had been abandoned nearby one of the rubbish dumps in Warsaw. It was saved from destruction by a passer-by, who secured the instrument and handed it over to Mateusz Halicki's violin-making workshop. From there, the violin found itself in the hands of Katarzyna Bednarz, a violin maker specialising in artistic violin-making and a graduate of the Poznań Academy of Music, who is known in her professional circles for her interest in 'unusual instruments with an unusual history'.

The Małopolska violin maker, guided by an annotation on the neck of the violin, begun her quest to discover its origin, which led her to... the camp in Murnau. From there, it was only one step to make the decision that the precious object should be - as the heroine of this story put it herself - "in the right place", i.e. in the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War.

The instrument was handed over to us on 8 February this year. Now, we are trying to figure out the history of it, as we have one more clue which may lead to the prisoner of war who made it - the initials "J.W" carved in the wood.

We are very impressed by the commitment of Ms Katarzyna Bednarz, to whom we would like to express our gratitude here for the donation of this exceptional gift!

Photo by K. Bednarz