By Olha Hembik | 2025-07-29

WARSAW -- The Polish government is quietly preparing for a worst-case scenario: spiriting some of Europe's most treasured artworks, including Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, out of the country in the event of war.

The emergency evacuation plan would see masterpieces by Rembrandt, Jan Matejko and Stanisław Wyspiański, as well as centuries-old tapestries and Renaissance icons from Wawel Castle in Krakow, moved out of Poland to protect them from destruction or looting.

Evacuation planning is now necessary, Hanna Wróblewska, Poland's culture minister, told the Financial Times in June. The country's almost 1,000 museums can no longer operate under "a theoretical notion of security" as long as Russia's war in neighboring Ukraine drags on, she said.

The plan involves 160 state-run cultural institutions and extends to paintings, sculptures, rare books, manuscripts and antique musical instruments. The Culture Ministry hopes private museums and galleries will consider relocating their collections.

A detailed evacuation strategy is expected by the end of the year. It is part of a broader national security overhaul announced by Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government, which includes strengthening border defenses and expanding Poland's armed forces to 500,000 troops.

A plan in case of invasion

Poland has hard-won experience with evacuating art in wartime, said Olena Bulgakova, a docent at the Museum of Warsaw.

"When [Adolf] Hitler's Germany attacked Poland, the days were numbered for the art historians at the Royal Castle and ordinary city residents to save at least the most valuable objects from the royal collection," Bulgakova told Kontur.

In spring 1939, months before the Nazi invasion, officials cataloged key works -- paintings, tapestries and furniture -- and began moving them east to cities like Lublin and Sandomierz. Among the first to go were 16th-century royal tapestries, later sent through Romania and France to safety in Canada.

"Thanks to this evacuation, we were able to save some of the most valuable works," Bulgakova said.

Poland's memory of earlier invasions, including the 17th-century Swedish Deluge (also called the Second Northern War), shaped the urgency of the effort, she added.

"The Swedes took everything they could get their hands on -- so much so that the ships loaded ... with stolen items were sinking in the Vistula."

The current plan is not full war mobilization but a contingency in case of attack, said Piotr Kaszuwara, founder of the NGO Fundacja Przyszłość dla Ukrainy.

"It's important not to be taken by surprise," Kaszuwara told Kontur. "It's a bad idea to start executing a plan like this at the last minute, when the missiles are already flying."

Ukraine's experience

Poland says it will apply lessons learned from helping Ukraine protect cultural heritage during wartime as it prepares its own emergency evacuation plan.

After Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, Ukraine sent dozens of Ukrainian artworks to Poland for safekeeping.

In 2023, workers relocated 37 pieces from the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyiv to Poland after a missile strike on October 10, 2022, damaged the museum and almost destroyed its collection.

Conservators at Warsaw's Royal Castle restoration center worked on repairing the objects.

The Khanenko Museum staff's primary mission during the war has been to protect the collection, Olena Zhyvkova, the museum's deputy director for research, told Kontur. That experience may now benefit Poland.

"Right now we're working to get as many of the works in our collection as possible into exhibitions, or research or restoration projects abroad," she said, adding that art can serve as a kind of cultural ambassador.

The museum has transferred some of its works to the National Museum of Lithuania and the Louvre for the duration of the war.

In 2022, the National Ossolinski Institute Foundation and the POLONIKA National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad collaborated to evacuate Ukrainian artifacts from Lviv and eastern Ukraine, Kaszuwara noted.

Dr. Wiktoria Malicka of the Ossolinski Institute arranged for special armored boxes to protect artworks during evacuation. POLONIKA staff operated under shelling as they worked to save monuments and historical objects.

"Unfortunately, many historical mementos were destroyed permanently in bombardments," Kaszuwara said.

Returning the works

Poland's Culture Ministry plans to meticulously document any evacuated cultural property, using digital tools to track the location and condition of each item to ensure its safe return, the Financial Times reported.

To oversee the effort, the ministry has appointed Maciej Matysiak, a former army colonel and former deputy chief of military counterintelligence. He now leads the ministry's department of security and crisis management.

Evacuating artworks during a military threat will require securing transit routes and coordinating with storage sites in host countries, officials said.

Poland is still trying to retrieve artworks that were stolen during World War II, said Wróblewska.

"Some 20 pieces are returned to Poland each year from Germany, the US and other countries, but 'a lot' must still be recovered," the Financial Times reported, citing Wróblewska.

Poles support the plan to safeguard artworks, according to Kaszuwara.

"Art objects are our history -- they are what make up our identity," he said.