Mrągowo – Muzeum w Mrągowie

The town’s museum is currently undergoing some renovation, so I knew in advance that some parts of it were closed. Unfortunately, that included the collection of dead animals, so no photos for Dylan to look at……

They had hundreds of postcards on the wall, something which seems quite common to Polish museums. Given that this was a German town until 1945, it also shows a different dimension to the history of Mrągowo because of the people who used to visit and who they would write to. The town was known as Sensburg during the period in which it was part of Prussia, which is still the name that Germans refer to the town as today.

This is part of history that very nearly got destroyed, it’s a tombstone from the Jewish cemetery which was once in the town. Many of the graves were badly damaged in the 1930s when the hate of the Nazis against the Jews started to worsen. However, much of the cemetery survived after the war, and it was only finally destroyed by the Poles in the late 1940s. The tombstones were destroyed or used in the foundations of houses. Very few tombstones survived, this one belonged to Mathilde Scheurmann who lived from 1846 until 1886.

A handy chart of what cities that are now in Poland were once called when they had German names.

The town church.

During the plebiscite after the First World War (which saw the area remain as part of East Prussia, rather than become Polish) the local stamps were over-printed to advertise the vote.

The museum isn’t sure when this was created, but they think in the mid-1930s. It has the town’s symbol on which is a bear’s paw, as legend has that a bear once threatened the town and so the locals cut its paw off. What a lovely reminder for the town to have….

An interesting exhibit, which seems to relate to the country music festivals that are held in the area (judging by the exhibits around them).

This is what happens with hyper-inflation, bank-notes of a huge denomination.

This was a relatively small museum, but I’m pleased that I visited it as the collection of postcards did show the history of the town. There was also a large map on the wall dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Mrągowo was a much smaller location.

There was a back room which one of the staff members kindly opened up for me, so even with some of the museum closed there was still a reasonable amount to see. The cost was around £1 in the UK money, although there were no English translations on the exhibits (although there were German translations in some places).