WARSAW ANEW. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS 1945–1949

About the event

WARSZAWA ANEW. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS 1945–1949 🎉 Vernissage: 25.09.2025, 6:00 PM 🖼️ Exhibition: 25.09.2025–22.02.2026 On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Warsaw’s reconstruction, organized by the City of Warsaw, DSH invites you to an exhibition of photographs of the capital rising from ruins, entitled "WARSZAWA ANEW. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS 1945–1949". The exhibition is curated by Anna Brzezińska and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner. The display is part of the BUDUJEMY NOWY DOM (We Build a New Home) program, prepared by DSH for the 80th anniversary of the start of the city’s reconstruction, and will be presented from September 25, 2025 to February 22, 2026 at the DSH headquarters at 20 Karowa Street in Warsaw. The vernissage will take place on September 25, 2025 at 6:00 PM. Varsavianist captions for the photos are by Ryszard Mączewski, the exhibition design by Katarzyna Godyń-Skoczylas, and the visual identity by Kuba Maria Mazurkiewicz. The photographs come from the archives of the Polish Press Agency. Project partners include Teatr Wielki - National Opera, PAP, Dzieje.pl. The exhibition consists of several dozen Warsaw photographs from the second half of the 1940s. Their authors are young photojournalists from various agencies operating just after the war – Jerzy Baranowski, Stanisław Dąbrowiecki, Wojciech Kondracki, Jan Tymiński, Stanisław Urbanowicz, Zdzisław Wdowiński, as well as cameramen Wiktor Janik and Karol Szczeciński. Unfortunately, not all photographs have preserved the names of their authors. These photographs show the city’s reconstruction, but also the rebuilding of life after the trauma of World War II. They allow us to look differently at those times and at Warsaw today. The city’s residents, with extraordinary vitality and energy, adapted to extremely difficult realities and tried to live normally in abnormal conditions. The decision to raise the capital from ruins was marked by a kind of positive madness, collective enthusiasm defying the realities and political situation. You can feel it when looking at these photos, at people’s faces, at the rebirth of city life. This enthusiasm and energy are contagious – says curator Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner. Warsaw was the most destroyed of all European capitals. As a result of wartime actions, about 84% of the buildings in the left-bank part of the city were demolished, including 90% of industrial and historic buildings, and about 72% of residential buildings. The rubble covered about 20 million cubic meters. The moment of former residents returning to the capital, life among ruins, and the painstaking reconstruction of the city were captured by the photographers with remarkable sensitivity and insight. The photographs presented in the album and exhibition help us understand the character and history of Poland’s capital and imagine the enormous effort put into raising Warsaw from the ruins. Images of the wasteland after the Warsaw Ghetto contrast with the newly built Mariensztat estate, poverty and sadness with street games and dances. In the ruins of the Old Town, children run and women hang laundry. It is a moving collective portrait of people building a city on rubble. A story not only about rebuilding the city, but about rebuilding life. The photographers were professionals, deeply engaged in their work. Their photos are of the highest technical and substantive quality, perfectly framed and composed. They are not only documents, but beautiful, emotional humanist photography. Thanks to their survival, we can feel the incredible spirit of the city and its inhabitants – says curator Anna Brzezińska. 🗓️ Curatorial tour schedule in 2025: - 28.09 (Sunday), 1:00 PM - 12.10 (Sunday), 2:00 PM - 16.11 (Sunday), 1:00 PM - 14.12 (Sunday), 1:00 PM The exhibition is accompanied by an album by Anna Brzezińska and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner, designed by Barabasz Opałka: "Warszawa Anew. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949". The book is available from September 25, 2025 at the DSH Bookstore (20 Karowa St., Warsaw) and online: https://ksiegarnia.dsh.waw.pl "Warszawa Anew. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949" is the second edition of a photo album containing images of postwar Warsaw from 1945–1949, selected from thousands of photographs in the Polish Press Agency’s collections. It is a poignant document, but also beautiful humanist photography. A collective portrait of Varsovians who rebuilt their city and their lives. Thanks to the frames captured by young photojournalists, we can closely see how Warsaw was reborn and feel its indestructible energy. As the introduction reads: "Warsaw in these photos has something untamed and wild. Life pulses in the ruined city. From thousands of postwar photographs in the Polish Press Agency’s collections, we chose images from the first five years (1945–1949). Our selection does not cover all aspects of the reality of the time. Not politics, repression, or propaganda, but the rebirth of life on the ruins and the determination of residents to live normally in abnormal conditions is, for us, the most fascinating theme emerging from these photographs. We wanted to create a story about rebuilding the city and rebuilding life after years of wartime trauma. The authors of the photos were young photojournalists from various agencies operating just after the war (including the Workers’ Agency and the Polish Film Photographic Agency), before the Central Photographic Agency was established in 1951. Unfortunately, not all photos have preserved the names of their authors. The role of photography in the press at the time was secondary; they were often taken on commission from various state institutions for documentation and propaganda purposes. Most of these photos had no chance of publication. However, photographers captured the everyday life of the city and its residents on a massive scale." Published in two language versions, Polish-English, the album contains 110 Warsaw photographs from the second half of the 1940s. Their authors are photojournalists from various agencies operating just after the war, before the Central Photographic Agency was established in 1951, including Jerzy Baranowski, Stanisław Dąbrowiecki, Władysław Forbert, Wojciech Kondracki, Tadeusz Kubiak, Bolesław Miedza, Lech Pieńkowski, Karol Szczeciński, Jan Tymiński, Stanisław Urbanowicz, Zdzisław Wdowiński. The exhibition and the second edition of the album are part of the "BUDUJEMY NOWY DOM" program initiated by DSH for 2025, marking the 80th anniversary of the start of Warsaw’s reconstruction. WARSAW. A NEW BEGINNING A week before the opening of the "WARSZAWA ANEW. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949" exhibition at DSH, on September 19, 2025, together with the Teatr Wielki-National Opera, we invite the theater audience to view selected photos at the "WARSAW. A NEW BEGINNING" exhibition at TWON. The display accompanies the premiere and performances of the opera "The Best City in the World. Opera about Warsaw" directed by Barbara Wiśniewska. Photographs selected by curators Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner and Anna Brzezińska will be on view in the lower foyer of TWON (ticketed area) from September 19 to October 31. The exhibition in the main hall of the Teatr Wielki-National Opera consists of 20 Warsaw photographs. Their authors are young photojournalists from various agencies operating just after the war – Jerzy Baranowski, Stanisław Dąbrowiecki, and Zdzisław Wdowiński. The exhibition at the Teatr Wielki-National Opera "WARSAW. A NEW BEGINNING" and "WARSZAWA ANEW" are a symbolic summary of years of work by Anna Brzezińska and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner – authors of the "Warszawa Anew" album and exhibition curators – with photographs from the Polish Press Agency archives from 1945-49 (the first exhibition on this topic was shown at DSH in 2007). It is worth mentioning that the previous edition of the "WARSZAWA ANEW" exhibition curated by Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner and Anna Brzezińska was opened to the public on March 17, 2020. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented a wider audience from seeing the display. After five years, we return to this extraordinary visual story about life in rebuilding Warsaw, presenting it in a new version. WE BUILD A NEW HOME In connection with the 80th anniversary of the start of the capital’s reconstruction in 2025, the DSH team has prepared a program referring to those experiences and also taking into account source testimonies and substantive findings about Warsaw’s reconstruction that have entered the public space in recent years. The project also aims to introduce previously unknown audiovisual materials (including testimonies from the DSH Oral History Archive). The substantive coordinator of the DSH "WE BUILD A NEW HOME" program is Piotr Jakubowski, deputy director of DSH. The program includes, among others, the outdoor exhibition "WE BUILD A NEW HOME. Reconstruction of Warsaw 1945-1952" (September-November 2025), the temporary exhibition "WARSZAWA ANEW. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949" (September 2025-February 2026), premieres of new, expanded editions of the albums "We Build a New Home. Reconstruction of Warsaw in 1945–1952" and "Warszawa Anew. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949", city walks with Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz along the most interesting, lesser-known locations in the capital related to the city’s reconstruction in the "We Build a New Home – Unknown Stories" series, as well as the online series "Thursday Meetings with Warsaw’s Reconstruction", running from March to December 2025 on DSH and Kulturalna Warszawa social media. The DSH "WE BUILD A NEW HOME" project is part of a cultural program initiated and financed by the City of Warsaw for the 80th anniversary of the start of the capital’s reconstruction. Detailed information: https://dsh.waw.pl https://kultura.um.warszawa.pl WARSZAWA ANEW. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS 1945–1949 Curators: Anna Brzezińska, Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner Graphic design: Katarzyna Skoczylas-Godyń Project coordination and exhibition production: Olga Pigłowska Preparation of historical accuracy of Warsaw photocaption: Ryszard Mączewski Editor: Marta Markowska Translation: Nitzan Reisner Proofreading: Hanna Antos (Polish), Adam Żuławski (English) Pre-press: Tomasz Kubaczyk Exhibition installation: Willow Service Mateusz Wierzbicki Photo printing: Large-format printing Paweł Ciepielewski Accompanying events: Sebastian Gawęda, Weronika Komorowska, Agata Kucharska, Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner Family Guide Development: Magdalena Kreis, Magda Szymańska (editing) PR team: Marianna Januszewicz, Maja Raczyńska, Marta Rogowska, Nadzieja Rudzka, Kaja Stępkowska The photographs presented in the exhibition come from the archival collections of the Polish Press Agency Quotations are from recorded interviews stored in Oral History Archives of the History Meeting House and the KARTA Center Photo: PAP/ Stanisław Dąbrowiecki Poland’s Rebirth Festival, folk festivities on the sidewalk and square after the demolition during the war of the Jasiński tenement at the intersection of 3 Maja Avenue (now Aleje Jerozolimskie) and Nowy Świat Street. In the background, in the first row, ruined tenements at 3 Maja Avenue 50 and 46 (now Stanisław Wisłocki Square). Warsaw, July 22, 1947