Wujek Mine Memorial Room Museum

The Wujek Mine Memorial Room Museum (Muzeum Izba Pamięci Kopalni Wujek) is housed in the former clothing store of the Wujek mine at Wincentego Pola 38 in Katowice-Brynów. It is devoted to the pacification of the mine on 16 December 1981, after the introduction of martial law. The facility is run by the Silesian Centre of Freedom and Solidarity. The mine itself is described in the entry Wujek Coal Mine.

What happened in December 1981

After martial law was introduced on 13 December, the miners at Wujek began an occupation strike, following the arrest of the head of the mine's Solidarity branch, Jan Ludwiczak. On the morning of 16 December, at about 10:30, an operation began to remove the strikers from in front of the mine. At about 12:30 a ZOMO special platoon opened fire on the miners.

According to findings based among other things on materials of the Institute of National Remembrance, nine miners were killed, and 23 miners and 41 officers were wounded. The operation involved 1,471 officers of the Citizens' Militia and ZOMO and 760 soldiers, supported by 22 tanks and 44 infantry fighting vehicles. Those killed were: Jan Stawisiński, Joachim Józef Gnida, Józef Czekalski, Józef Krzysztof Giza, Ryszard Józef Gzik, Bogusław Kopczak, Andrzej Pełka, Zbigniew Wilk and Zenon Zając. Other sources give a different breakdown: seven miners died on the spot, and two died a few days later. The course of events was established among other things in court trials held from 1991 to 2009.

The building and the history of the museum

The building, made of brick at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, served as a storehouse of the Oheim mine, which after 1922 took the name Wujek. It is entered in the heritage register (number A/459/15 of 13 October 2015). It stood by the main entrance to the works.

The museum was opened on 1 December 2008 on the initiative of the Social Committee for the Memory of the Miners of the Wujek Mine Killed on 16 December 1981, in cooperation with the Branch Office of Public Education in Katowice and the works committee of the mine's Solidarity trade union. Since 16 December 2011, under an agreement with the city of Katowice, it has been run by the Silesian Centre of Freedom and Solidarity. Originally three rooms showed souvenirs from the martial law period, exhibits related to the history of mining, a staged scene of a miner's struggle with a ZOMO officer and a diorama of the events at the mine.

The current exhibition

In 2021 a storey was added to the building to a design by Wojciech Koziarski; the floor area grew from 200 to 1,100 square metres. A new multimedia exhibition was opened on 16 December 2021. According to the Centre's website the exhibition occupies three levels of the former storehouse. Level -1 presents the post-war political context of Europe and the beginnings of Solidarity, level 0 the pacification of 16 December 1981, with a restored T-55 tank and the preserved inner ramp on which the shots were fired, and level +1 the history of the 1980s, growing social resistance, the role of the Church and the Round Table talks.

In front of the entrance to the mine grounds stands a monument to the fallen miners, a 33-metre cross unveiled in December 1991, designed by Alina Borowczak-Grzybowska and Andrzej Grzybowski. Next to the cross are urns with earth from the graves of the nine people killed.

Practical information

• Address: Wincentego Pola 38, Katowice (Brynów).
• Current opening hours are listed on the Centre's website (scwis.pl).
• A guided visit can be booked by telephone or e-mail; the contact details are on the Centre's website.
• The mine beside which the museum stands applies its own rules on its premises; in the museum keep to the tone appropriate to a place of remembrance.