Exhibition: The face behind the Warsaw Mermaid

A new exhibition in the Polish capital tells the story of a woman whose face became the model for the city’s landmark Warsaw Mermaid statue. 

The Polish capital's famous Warsaw Mermaid statue on the western bank of the Vistula River.

Photo: Jacek Sopotnicki/Alamy Stock Photo via PAP

The statue, which stands on the embankment of the Vistula river in Warsaw, has the face of Krystyna Krahelska, a poet, ethnographer, resistance fighter in Poland’s World War II Home Army, and a Warsaw Rising insurgent.

Krystyna Krahelska. Photo: PAP

An exhibition documenting Krahelska’s life is now on display at the Warsaw Museum of Independence.

Elżbieta Krajewska has the story.

Click on the audio player above to listen.