Ulma Family museum in Markowa

The decision to build the museum was taken by the Subcarpathian Regional Assembly in June 2008. A space of 500 square meters was allocated for a restoration of the Ulma family home and for an exhibition hall, lecture hall, and research facility. Construction cost 6.5 million złotych. In its first year of operation, the Ulma-Family Museum hosted 50,000 visitors. ==The structure and its surroundings ==

The designers created a semi-glazed facade that conceals a mystery that visitors will discover. The building juts into the square. The front of the museum is a universal symbolic representation of a house, reminiscent of the history of pre-war Markowa. It suggests both the times of the Shoah, and unchanging form and persistence in the face of historical adversities. The exhibition covers some 120 square meters.2. The wall in front of the museum displays plaques with names of Poles who saved Jews. In the square before the museum are illuminated tablets with the names of those who died saving Jews. Due to limited space, the names of only those who were active in present-day Subcarpathian Province are given. Next to the museum itself, a garden is being created that will commemorate with illuminated plaques the Polish cities and towns where Jewish residents were rescued by the 6,700 persons recognized as the Polish Righteous among the Nations. Some 1,500 such places have been identified. The memorial garden will incorporate the monument to the Ulma family, erected in 2004, that stands in the Markowa open-air museum. == Exhibit ==

The museum commemorates all the Poles who, at the risk of their own lives, saved Jews condemned by the Germans to extermination. It was named after Markowa's Ulma family (Józef Ulma, his wife Wiktoria, and their seven children), who were murdered by German gendarmes on 24 March 1944, along with the eight Jews whom they had been sheltering. The former Israeli ambassador to Poland Shevah Weiss has described the museum as a "Temple of Memory". ==References==