The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes stands in what was the centre of the Warsaw Ghetto, on the site where the 1943 Uprising began. It was unveiled in 1948 — just three years after the war ended, and one of the first Holocaust memorials in the world. The bronze figures on the south face show Jews being led to the gas chambers; on the north face, fighters rise in revolt with weapons in hand.
The monument faces the main entrance to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Together they form the centrepiece of the Muranów neighbourhood, built on the rubble of the ghetto after the war. Walking the surrounding streets, where the ground level is noticeably higher than the rest of the city — raised by the debris of demolished buildings — makes the scale of the destruction tangible.