Planned to contain documents, artifacts, and individual testimonies, the museum aims to “fill in the blanks, claim what has been forgotten and silenced, restore the place of minority histories and marginalized groups.”
Announcing the project, the Lambda association said: “This is really happening! We are fulfilling the dream of creating the first museum in Poland and the fifth in the world that will tell the story of the LGBTQ+ community.”
It added: “[The] QueerMuseum is needed to talk about what other institutions do not have a place for: celebrating the history of the LGBTQ+ community, commemorating victims of discrimination, and accompanying queer communities in creating culture and fighting for their rights.”
Among the items on display will be the typewriter of Tadeusz Olszewski, a poet and writer and member of communist Poland’s Warsaw Homosexual Movement.
It will also include the typescript of his 2008 book Zatoka Ostów (Thistle Bay), about a gay man who is forced to hide his sexual orientation.
Another object to go on display will be the nomination to parliament of Anna Grodzka, who, in 2011, became the first openly transgender MP in Europe and only the third such member of a national parliament worldwide.
Also included will be a 12-meter rainbow flag, sewn in protest against a ban on organizing Poland’s first Equality Parade in Warsaw.
Writing about the initiative on its website, Warsaw City Hall - which is helping to subsidize the museum - said: “The flag was an important part of equality marches all over Poland and bears traces of attacks and violence.”
The museum will also feature a plaque commemorating gay victims of World War II and around 100,000 documents from 1945–2024 belonging to Lambda.
Deputy mayor Aldona Machnowska-Góra said: “I am glad that this is the third museum of this kind in Europe, but I am also glad because it tells about the identity of this city.”
The Lambda association has now set up a crowdfunder to help raise money to finish the project.
Writing on its pomagam.pl page, the group said: “The opening of QueerMuzeum in the very center of the capital of Poland is a historic moment, but we will not succeed without your help.
“However, to make it happen, we need your support.
“We are still short of about PLN 200,000 to cover the necessary funds and finalize the works.”
