Children of War

Staged at Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory, this exhibition tells the story of the Second World War through the eyes of children - those who were no more than eleven years old when the war broke out on 1 September 1939. Through the micro-stories of more than a dozen protagonists of differing backgrounds, faiths and social standing, it presents wartime childhood as a many-sided experience, and the children themselves not only as victims but as active subjects of those events.

The Museum of Krakow on the exhibition:

The Children of War exhibition will be presented at Oskar Schindler’s Emalia Factory, a place of living memory, immensely important to the history of Krakow during World War II.

Organized by the Museum of Krakow (Oskar Schindler’s Factory Branch), the exhibition faces the difficult challenge of trying to show the war and occupation from the perspective of children who were no more than 11 years old when the war broke out on 1 September 1939.

The micro-stories of more than a dozen characters - who differ in terms of their cultural background, national affiliation, religion, social and economic status - form a broad landscape of personal experiences and behaviour of children of war.

With the exhibition, we want to change previous perceptions of children - so that we see them not only and exclusively as victims, but also as active subjects and addressees of adults’ actions. We want to show their role in those cruel times, their agency - even if it was dependent on the agency of adults. We also want to show their mutual relations with adults, closer and distant family, and finally strangers. Out of respect for the characters and to provide a full picture of their wartime fate, we will also show, albeit in an abbreviated form, their pre-war and post-war stories.

What to expect

The exhibition leads visitors through the interwoven fates of more than a dozen children - Poles, Jews and members of other communities in occupied Krakow and the surrounding region. Alongside personal objects, documents and photographs, it reveals the children’s relationships with adults and their own agency under the conditions of war. Pre-war and post-war threads round out the portrait of each protagonist.

The exhibition is accompanied by a children’s book, “Szkatułka. Pierrot. Piłeczka” by Joanna Rudniańska.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Museum of Krakow website.

Museum profile: Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory.