As well as highlighting local ethnographic traditions, this better than average collection includes a large celebration of Roma (Gypsy) culture, which is allegedly the only such collection in Europe. A truly fascinating, if slightly dated, exhibition tracing Roma culture in Poland from its beginnings in the 15th century to their fate at the hands of the Nazis and beyond, the three rooms that make up the exhibition include some excellent maps, models, costumes and photographs, all of which are best seen with the aid of a small and very good booklet, The Gypsies, written by the museum’s curator Adam Bartosz and available in English for just 3zł. There are still about 350 Roma living in Tarnów, and their culture is still very much alive. In the museum’s back garden you'll find several traditionally painted gypsy caravans.

Admission 5/3zł. Sun free.

Ethnographic Museum comments Add Yours

• Anne Tischlinger 15 July 2011
  Unfortunately we were only in Tarnow for a lunch break while travelling to places which used to be part of the Austrian Empire. We didn't come across the Ethnographic Museum in that short time but did discover the beautiful wall of a building (near the Renaissance-flavoured main square (Rynek)) where the Jewish community of Tarnow was commemorated. Interestingly we read on a new-looking plaque that 2000 Jews from the Madritsch clothing factory in Tarnow had been transferred to the concentration camp at Plaszow Krakau at the end of August 1943 when the ghetto in Tarnow was liquidated by the Gestapo. Julius Madritsch and Raimund Tietsch from Vienna were finally able to save some of their lives and are commemorated at Yad Vashem in Israel. It's a pity that few people in Austria are aware of this.