Grażyna Pawlak, vice-director for development at the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute, at Willy Brandt Square, next to the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes

The opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, led by the eminent museologist Jeshajahu Weinberg, inspired the idea of creating a Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Dr. Grażyna Pawlak, then vice-director for development at the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute, took part in the opening ceremony, held on 22 April 1993. A modern narrative museum, retelling the history of the Holocaust, gave her the idea for a museum in Warsaw that would extend that narrative by including the story of Jewish life before the Shoah.