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MUSEUM RAPPERSWIL FROM 1868 UNTIL TODAY |
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The Museum was founded by Wladyslaw Count Plater an emigrant (after the November Uprising of 1830), activist and publicist. He bequeathed all the exhibits of the museum to the Polish nation. In 1927 a transport of the museum's exhibits to Poland counted thirteen carriages (3000 art masterpieces, 2000 historical mementoes, 20.000 engravings, 9000 medals and coins, 92.000 books and 27.000 manuscripts). Unfortunately, a larger part of these, especially the library and archives, was destroyed in Warsaw during the World War II. The Museum of Contemporary Poland (1936-1951) In 1936, the Museum of Contemporary Poland was opened. It popularised the art and achievements of the new independent Poland. In 1940, around 13.000 soldiers of the Polish army fighting in France became internees in Switzerland. The Museum supervised educational and cultural work in the internment camps. After the World War II in 1945, the museum was taken over by the government of the Polish People's Republic. Rapperswil's local government, fearing that the castle would become the centre of communist propaganda, closed the institution down in 1951. The present Museum The present exhibition of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil
consists of several subject matters: the Swiss in Poland and the Poles
in Switzerland; the history of the Polish emigrations to the West in the
19th and 20th century; the history of the Polish fight for independence;
Poland's most distinguished scientists, artists, and Nobel Prize laureates.
In the gallery one can admire paintings by Polish painters from the 19th
and 20th century; witnesses of Jewish culture in Poland; Polish handicraft
and folk art. In the Cloister and the Defence Tower of the castle more
than 100 temporary exhibitions of Polish art and historical documentation's
have been displayed in the past 20 years. By organising exhibitions, concerts,
lectures, symposia and conferences the Polish Museum in Rapperswil fulfils
the role of a Polish cultural centre in Switzerland.
©
Copyright by Polish Museum Rapperswil 2005
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