Losses and Gains: Polish Museums and Their Collections After World War II: The Case of the National Museum in Warsaw
After the outbreak of World War II, occupying Nazi forces systematically “researched” Polish public and private collections, seizing art considered valuable for its material and cultural significance. Objects deemed less valuable were often destroyed as symbols of Polish identity. The impact of the war on Polish museums, however, went far beyond immediate looting and destruction. The post-war Potsdam Conference brought dramatic border changes, resulting in Poland’s loss of vast eastern territories, while former German territories to the west and north were incorporated into Poland. Consequently, all movable assets east of the Oder and Neisse rivers became Polish state property. Today, curators at Polish museums, including the National Museum in Warsaw, face complex provenance research tasks. These often involve collections once belonging to German institutions, which bring a unique set of challenges and ethical considerations. The National Museum in Warsaw, with its extensive and diverse collection, exemplifies these challenges and showcases the strategies and research approaches currently employed to address them. 

Piotr Borusowski

Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw
Piotr Borusowski, curator at the Department of Prints and Drawings at the National Museum in Warsaw, specializes in Dutch, Flemish, and German drawings. His research encompasses the history of art collecting and provenance studies. He holds degrees from the University of Warsaw in Law (2004) and Art History (2006). In 2023 he completed his PhD, Albrecht von Sebisch’s (1685-1748) Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Prints in the Art-Collecting Culture of Central Europa in the First Half of the 18th-Century. From 2012 to 2022, Borusowski served as editor of the Journal of the National Museum in Warsaw. He also edited the museum’s Catalogue of Dutch and Flemish Paintings (2015) and co-curated the 2017 exhibition In the Workshop of a Netherlandish Master: Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Collection of the National Museum in Warsaw.