Twenty million abroad
The estimated number of people of Polish descent living outside Poland.
ThomasLel — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Max Gilead — CC BY-SA 4.0 · LukaszKatlewa — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Andrzej Otrębski — CC BY-SA 4.0
For successive reasons across two centuries: rural poverty in the nineteenth century, exile after the uprisings against Russia, the destruction of the Second World War which displaced millions, then the restrictions and economic crisis of the communist period, especially after martial law in 1981. Each wave had its cause, and the museum presents them in order rather than as one mass.
Yes, both are in Gdynia a short distance apart, and the train from Gdańsk serves both. A suggested order: the Emigration Museum first, as it needs more time and attention, then the ship, then a walk along the waterfront. A full day from Gdańsk.
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A museum of Polish emigration, in the maritime station building at Gdynia — the place from which hundreds of thousands left for America, Canada and Australia between the wars and after. The site was chosen because it is the place itself: this is the hall where emigrants waited, and the quay from which they boarded. The building dates from the 1930s and was restored and opened as a museum in 2015. The subject is wider than economic migration: the exhibition covers two centuries of Poles leaving their country — fleeing poverty, exiled after the uprisings, escaping war, refugees afterwards, and departures in the 1980s under martial law. The number of people of Polish descent living outside Poland is estimated at around twenty million. The display is modern and multimedia and rests on personal stories: letters, suitcases, documents and recorded testimony. This is among Poland's most important recent museums, and its subject speaks to any visitor whose own family has known migration.
The estimated number of people of Polish descent living outside Poland.
Letters, suitcases, documents and recorded testimony rather than statistics alone.
Poverty, exile, war, refuge and martial law — not one single cause.
The Maritime Station, Gdynia harbour