A new WWI museum in the making

Back in November 2024, I had the distinct privilege to take part in a workshop in Gorlice, a small city in southern Poland, where they are planning a brand-new museum. The area is home to some amazing World War I cemeteries, and it was the site of an important battle between the imperial Russian and the Austro-Hungarian armies. Each year hundreds of people gather for reenactments and tourists from Hungary and Austria come to visit the graves of fallen soldiers.

With all of this memory already being cultivated, it seems like a great plan to take advantage of it and build a museum dedicated to the First World War in Gorlice. In particular, the plan is to have the museum next to one of the impressive cemeteries that would be dedicated to the Eastern Front. Ideally this will be a Pan-European museum, capable of bringing visitors from all countries and not just Poland. I strongly support this initiative and I hope that they are successful.

Most recently, in April 2026, the team from Gorlice was on a trip around Poland visiting newer museums to find out how they came to be and how they function. I put together a little discussion panel for them and then showed the Gorlice team around our exhibition. Here are a few photos from the visit.

Photo credit: Natalia Pacana-Roman, Miasto Gorlice