The commemoration of the tragic events that took place in the village of Michniów in 1943, symbolically refers to the dramatic fate of all pacified Polish villages, combining memory with reconciliation.
The initiative to create the museum emerged in 1980s. Already in 1983 there was the social committee for construction of the Mausoleum, and in 1990, the Foundation - Mausoleum of Polish Village Martyrdom.
In 1993, on the 50th anniversary of the pacification, the monument "Michniów Pieta" was consecrated, in 1997, replacing the existing modest memorial chamber in a wooden hut, a memorial house was built, with a permanent exhibition, and a research centre collecting the records of the martyrdom of Polish countryside during World War II. The Mausoleum includes a symbolic cemetery with crosses of each pacified Polish village. Until now there are 230 crosses commemorating the villages. The commemorated villages include inter alia, villages pacified in 1940 in operation against the unit of major "Hubal", seven villages in Lasy Janowskie, where on 2 February 1944, the Germans murdered a total of 1,250 people, villages in Zamość region, Ochotnica, Radwanowice, where German police crucified the village administrator, collective monument to Polish villages in Volhynia and many others.
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