First Queer Museum Opens in Central and Eastern Europe, in Warsaw
The first museum dedicated to LGBTQ history has opened in Poland, marking an important milestone in a country where legal recognition of gay rights remains limited. Located in Warsaw on Marshalkowska Street, the museum was founded by Lambda, a Polish non-profit human rights organisation.
‘We are opening the world's first queer museum in a country where the legal situation for queer people is the worst in the entire EU,’ said Milosz Przepierkowski, president of Lambda.
The museum's collection includes nearly 150 artefacts, including letters, photographs and early activist materials, which tell the story of LGBTQ people in Poland since the 16th century. In a statement, Lamda director Krzysztof Kliszczynski called the museum the first of its kind in post-communist Europe.
The ceremony was attended by key figures from Poland's LGBTQ activist circles, including writer Andrzej Sielerowicz and Ryszard Kisiel, who both worked as activists in Warsaw in the 1980s.
At the time when the two were most active, Polish security forces launched a large-scale campaign to profile gay men in the city and create a register of their information. The two men donated personal materials to the museum's collection. Kisil provided a decades-old brochure on safe sex, and Sielerowicz provided a photo of himself and his partner dating back 45 years.
Kliszczynski stressed that preserving these stories was a challenge, as most Polish LGBTQ records have remained private or have been thrown away.
While the organisers of the museum project say this marks progress, queer activists still highlight the existing legal barriers to collecting and displaying archival material in public places without negative reactions. Same-sex partnerships remain unrecognised by law, and Polish officials have been scrutinised by international organisations in recent years for discriminatory policies against LGBTQ people.
