Pomorska Street museum in Krakow: tour of the former Gestapo headquarters

Visiting the former Gestapo headquarters in Krakow, now the Pomorska Street Museum, is a powerful experience to have during a stay in the city. You step into a 1930s building, the Dom Slaski, requisitioned by the Gestapo during the Nazi occupation and then taken over after the war by the communist regime.

The museum retraces both the history of the city under Nazi terror and the early years of the Soviet-backed regime, while preserving the former basement cells, covered with inscriptions left by prisoners.

It is a short but intense visit that goes very well with a visit to Auschwitz, the Plaszow camp or Oskar Schindler's Factory.

In this article, I offer a complete guide to help you understand the history of the site, know what to expect, and practically organize your visit to the Pomorska Street Museum in Krakow.

Understanding what the Pomorska Street Museum in Krakow is today

The Pomorska Street Museum is housed in the former Gestapo headquarters in Krakow and recounts the lives of local residents under Nazi terror, then under the communist regime.

A memorial at the heart of a former Gestapo headquarters

Located north of the Old Town at 2 Pomorska Street, this museum is part of the Krakow Museum network and its "Memory Trail." When you arrive in front of the building, you see a simple 1930s façade with no spectacular staging, but once you know what happened there, the atmosphere quickly takes on a different weight.

The exhibition is titled "People of Krakow Under Terror: 1939–1945–1956." It looks at how residents experienced first the Nazi occupation, then the arrival of communist rule. The museum is modest in size but dense, with deliberately understated scenography: a chronological timeline on the floor, bilingual explanatory panels (Polish/English), archival documents, portraits, and objects created in detention.

Outside, a memorial greets visitors with a sentence carved by a prisoner on the walls of his cell: "The only witnesses of the tears shed and what happened here are these four walls and the good Jesus." It immediately sets the tone for the visit.

A visit that complements other memorial sites in Krakow

The Pomorska Street Museum can easily be visited in 1 to 2 hours and fits well into a broader itinerary devoted to the history of World War II in Poland. It is less well known than Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Plaszow camp or Oskar Schindler's Factory, but it offers a very local perspective on repression in Krakow itself.

In the corridor leading to the exhibition and the cells, you will see photos of concentration camp prisoners, a direct reminder of what was happening on the outskirts of the city, particularly at Auschwitz-Birkenau or the Plaszow camp. Pomorska Street shows what took place upstream of these deportations, in the offices and basements of a Krakow neighborhood that today seems almost ordinary.

Dom Śląski, from Silesian House to Gestapo Headquarters

Before becoming a place of remembrance, the building on Pomorska Street was Dom Śląski, a "Silesian House" built to strengthen ties between Silesia and Poland.

A 1930s building designed for national cohesion

In the 1930s, architects Jozef Rybicki and Ludwik Wojtyczko designed a large modern building in Krakow that was given the name "Silesian House," or "Dom Śląski." At that time, Poland was under a dictatorship, and the region of Silesia was particularly divided, with a Polish-speaking population in Upper Silesia and a German-speaking population in Lower Silesia.

Dom Śląski was conceived as a tool for strengthening cohesion between Silesia and historic Poland. It was intended to promote Polish culture and offer better training opportunities to young people from Silesia through stays, meetings, and cultural activities. It is this original mission, centered on education and social bonds, that makes the rest of its history all the more striking.

The building was designed as a multipurpose facility: spread over 5 levels and organized into four wings around a small inner courtyard, it housed offices, a library, conference rooms, a movie theater, a canteen, apartments, and residential areas for students and tourists. It was a lively place, designed to accommodate people.

Requisition by the Gestapo in 1939

On September 13, 1939, just days after the start of World War II, the Gestapo requisitioned Dom Śląski to establish its headquarters there, which it occupied until January 17, 1945. In the basement, the Nazi secret police installed cells for political prisoners, while interrogations, often accompanied by torture, took place on the upper floors.

The prisoners locked up within these walls often came from Montelupich Prison, itself a notorious place of detention and torture in Krakow. Many were resistance fighters, but others had simply been rounded up in the street or denounced for listening to a banned radio station. Some did not survive the interrogations or detention; others were deported.

The exhibition "The People of Krakow Under Terror"

The permanent exhibition on Pomorska Street tells the story of Krakow's inhabitants under Nazi terror, then under the communist regime, through individual accounts, objects, and archival materials.

A restrained design focused on the people of Krakow

As soon as you enter, you follow a chronological timeline on the floor that guides you through the different rooms. Bilingual panels (Polish and English) explain the key stages of the establishment of the Gestapo in Krakow, its organization, its methods, and the impact on the local population.

Objects created by prisoners from Montelupich are on display: a tablecloth delicately decorated by women, a chess set made entirely out of bread… These modest objects testify to the creativity and dignity of those who tried, under extreme conditions, to preserve a sense of humanity and leave a trace of their existence.

Very quickly, the museum draws attention to the victims and, at times, to the perpetrators. Several panels are designed with a two-sided presentation: on one side, the story of a victim, with their name, face, and a few details about their life before arrest; on the other, the photo and background of their executioner. This silent confrontation speaks volumes about the brutality of the system.

Prisoners' inscriptions and individual stories

On the walls of the former cells, prisoners left more than 600 inscriptions that are still visible today. These include names, dates, prayers, farewell messages, and sometimes memories that are difficult for an outsider to understand but were essential to those who wrote them.

These inscriptions have been recorded, documented, and preserved as traces of lives cut short between 1943 and 1945. As you read them, you can picture these men and women, aware of the danger, trying to leave proof that they had been there.

The museum also gives a voice to some of them through letters and testimonies. The one by Mieczyslaw Filk, for example, is particularly harrowing:

"Montelupich, July 1, 1940. My dearest ones, the time has come for me to say goodbye to this world. I will soon be executed by firing squad. I have not yet been sentenced but I am in the same situation as the 45 people who, before me, were shot on June 29. There will thus be 150 of us to be executed, mostly innocent people […]. My grave will probably be at the Krzeslawice fort, near Mogila […].

No matter how hard they try to convince you that we are alive, do not believe these murderers. We will die, alongside people from all social classes, from farmers to workers to professors and lieutenants, both young and old, for serious crimes as well as for trifles" (Mieczyslaw Filk)

Interrogation techniques and acts of resistance

An office has been reconstructed to show the interrogation techniques used by the Gestapo. On the second and third floors of the building, officers conducted these interrogations, sometimes beginning in an almost polite tone before very quickly turning to violence.

The torture methods described are hard to read about: suffocation with a gas mask whose openings were blocked, teeth pulled out, arms twisted and hung from a hook… Despite this violence, some resistance fighters tried to keep the initiative. One of them, Edward Heil, for example, hollowed out the inside of a book about the German army to hide a firearm inside it.

Although all the stories are tragic, there are nevertheless a few miracles among them. One is the story of a man, Jan Hajduga, taken with a group of resistance fighters to the banks of the Vistula. They all had to lie face down on the ground and were killed with a bullet to the head… but for this man, the bullet ricocheted, and he survived by pretending to be dead.

Right after that, you come across portraits of prisoners deported to concentration camps and items of clothing, notably from the Mauthausen camp. An interactive table, in the form of a typewriter, lets you launch documentary searches by typing a victim's name. I was not able to determine the exact scope of these archives, but this tool shows how much the work of remembrance is still continuing today.

From the end of the war to the establishment of the Soviet regime

After 1945, the Pomorska Street Museum looks at the early years of the communist regime in Poland and the way it extended certain patterns of repression.

The 1946 referendum and the shift towards communism

The last part of the exhibition takes you into the immediate post-war period. Poles are then invited to answer three questions in a referendum that will pave the way for the establishment of the Soviet regime in Poland. The questions concern the abolition of the Senate, economic reforms (agriculture, nationalizations), and strengthening the border in the west of the country.

• Do you wish for the abolition of the Senate?
• Do you wish for a strengthening of the economic system through agricultural reforms and the nationalization of key sectors of the national economy?
• Do you wish for a strengthening of the border in the west of Poland?

In practice, the official results of this referendum are used to legitimize the establishment of a communist government closely aligned with Moscow. For many Polish resistance fighters, this new phase comes with arrests, interrogations, and deportations, notably to Siberia.

Deportations to Siberia and the continuity of violence

A display case is devoted to deportations to Siberia. You see the meager belongings taken by the deportees: rubber shoes, mess tin, knife, freeze-dried soup. In an extremely harsh environment, these few rudimentary items are enough to show just how limited the chances of survival were.

This part of the exhibition is not intended to compare regimes, but to show a continuity in the violence suffered by part of the Polish population, which in just a few years went from Nazi occupation to a new form of political control.

Visiting the former Gestapo cells on Pomorska Street

The most striking part of the visit is in the former Gestapo cells, located in the basement of the building and accessible with museum staff.

Going down to the basement changes how you see the place

It was in these basements that my own visit took on a very particular dimension. This is where the strangest part of the visit began. Imagine that all this time, I was alone in the museum, while heavy rain was pouring down outside…

The Pomorska Street Museum is not one of the main tourist attractions in Krakow; it's a bit off the beaten path, so it's not the kind of museum where you stop "just because you happen to be walking by." In the middle of October, the place was quite calm. After going through the exhibition, I asked to see the former cells without really knowing what to expect.

The woman at the reception desk was imposing and did not speak English. Her colleague simply gave her a nod to indicate that she should take me down to the basement. Without a word, she picked up a long dark raincoat and a huge bunch of keys… and motioned for me to follow her.

We went out into the building's small courtyard, in the pouring rain. She unlocked a door with a terrible creak. A few steps, a gate, more creaking keys… and still this complete lack of verbal exchange; the language barrier and the grim atmosphere did not really lend themselves to conversation.

She flipped a worn light switch, opened the heavy cell doors, then dragged over a stool that made a dreadful noise in the silence of the prison. She sat down, with leftover rain still running down her raincoat… and motioned for me to look around at my own pace.

The inscriptions carved into the walls of the cells

The context, combined with the visit to this prison where so many people suffered, gave this moment a very particular tone. The air smelled musty and damp, and the walls were covered with inscriptions left by those who had been tortured there.

Suffering, cries to God…

But also a terrible pride, the pride of people who know they are going to die but know they are leaving with their heads held high, without dishonor, faithful to their values while their executioners trample them so deeply.

One sentence particularly struck me: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," a quotation from Horace that means "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." In this context, these words take on an especially powerful resonance. They are a reminder that, for some, dying here meant remaining faithful to their values in the face of extreme violence.

This moment left a very strong impression on me. The visit does not try to elicit a spectacular emotional reaction, but simply being physically present in these cells, with these inscriptions at eye level, makes history feel very close. As part of discovering Krakow from a historical perspective, it is a stop that truly deepens your understanding of what the city has endured.

Practical tips for visiting the Pomorska Street Museum in Krakow

A visit to the Pomorska Street Museum is quite short, easy to plan, and accessible by public transport from downtown Krakow.

Visit duration and what to see on site

Plan on about 1 hr 30 min to visit the permanent exhibition and the former Gestapo cells. If you take the time to read most of the panels, look at the objects, and linger in the basement, this amount of time lets you avoid feeling rushed.

The museum is located at 2 Pomorska Street. When I visited, the documentation was available in Polish and English, which is still the case today. There was no audio guide for other foreign languages, which is something to keep in mind if you are traveling with people who do not read English (using a translation app like Google Translate can then be helpful). The atmosphere is understated: very few sound effects or projections, mainly text, photos, and objects.

Opening hours, prices and combined tickets

The Pomorska Street Museum is part of the Museum of Krakow, which manages several historic sites in the city. It is generally closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and open the rest of the week from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Admission is free one day a week (currently on Wednesdays), which is helpful if you are on a tight budget or planning several historical visits.

On other days, admission remains reasonably priced for a city museum (around 5–6 euros per adult, with discounts for students, seniors and children, at the rates in force in 2026). You can check current prices and opening hours directly on the official website.

There are "Memory Trail" combined tickets that allow you to visit several memorial sites managed by the Museum of Krakow, including the pharmacy in the former ghetto and Oskar Schindler's Factory. This type of ticket is useful if you want to devote an entire day to exploring Krakow's history during World War II.

You can buy your tickets:

• On the museum's website.
• Directly on site at the Pomorska Street ticket office, by arriving a little early.
• At the tourist office in central Krakow, located in the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) on the Main Market Square.

Access and transportation to get to Pomorska Street

The museum is very easy to reach by public transport from the Old Town. It is located about a 2-minute walk from the Plac Inwalidów tram stop, a major junction served by many lines (including 4, 8, 20, 24 at the time of my visit).

From the historic center (Rynek Główny or the main station Kraków Główny), you can reach Plac Inwalidów in just a few tram stops, then follow Pomorska Street for a very short distance. The surroundings are those of a residential and administrative neighborhood, with no particular difficulty finding your way.

If you use public transport in Krakow, I recommend downloading the Jakdojade app, which is very convenient for planning your tram and bus routes in real time.

When should you fit this visit into your stay?

A visit to Pomorska Street works well:

• As a complement to a day devoted to World War II history (with Schindler, Płaszów, the pharmacy in the former ghetto).
• As a late-afternoon activity, since the visit is relatively short but dense in content.
• During a stay of more than 4 days in Krakow, if you have already seen the main highlights of the historic center beforehand.

Traveler's Memo for visiting the Pomorska Street Museum in Krakow

Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions about the visit to the former Gestapo headquarters on Pomorska Street in Krakow.

Visiting the former Gestapo headquarters on Pomorska Street is neither the most spectacular nor the best-known experience in Kraków, but it is one that stays with you. It puts a human face on the city's residents who suffered under Nazi repression and then the transition to the communist regime, while placing you physically in the very locations where these stories unfolded.

If you want to understand Kraków beyond its colorful facades and lively cafés, this is a stop that truly deserves a place in your itinerary. You can also take a look at my other tips to plan your sightseeing and your trip to Kraków.