WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s newest museum stands in the heart of the former Warsaw ghetto, where 70 years ago Jews rebelled against their German oppressors.

Yet the $100 million Mu- seum of the History of Polish Jews, whose gala inauguration Friday is timed to coincide with the anniversary of that upris- ing, is not meant to be another museum to the Nazi Holocaust. While one major gallery will be devoted to the mass murder of World War II that turned Poland into the primary killing ground for European Jews, seven others will display 1,000 years of Jew- ish life and culture.

“It is not another museum of the Holocaust. It is a museum of life,” said Sigmund Rolat, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who chairs the museum’s North American council. “Young peo- ple, especially Americans, usu- ally learn only about the Ger- man concentration camps. It’s important to see Auschwitz, but it’s more important to see where Jews lived for a thousand years and where they have created so

much.” Retrieving a Polish 10-zloty

($3) note from his briefcase, Rolat noted that Prince Mieszko I, the 10th century ruler pic- tured on the front of the bill, had commissioned Poland’s first coin, which had Hebrew letter- ing, shown on the reverse. The minters at the time were Jew- ish, most likely the descendants of traders who settled here that same century.

The museum, designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahla- maki, is an understated glass- covered box of a building whose most dramatic feature is its entry hall, a deep crevice surrounded by undulating walls, symbol- izing the hope and despair that characterized the Jewish experi- ence in Poland. It’s still a work in progress; its core exhibit has yet to be installed, leaving many questions open about just how a millennium of Jewish life will be depicted.

The museum design supports two related goals. The perma- nent displays, which will be in below-ground galleries, will re- count the rich but tragic history of what was once the world’s biggest Jewish community, while the spacious upper floors are to host an impressive new

cultural center for Warsaw. “The Holocaust is generally told as a story in the history of anti-Semitism, and this story is much broader, much richer and much deeper than the history of anti-Semitism,” said Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett of New York University, one of the principal curators. “The world should not know more about how they died than how they lived. It is our mission to com-

municate how they lived.” The museum won’t shy from the darkest periods of Polish- Jewish relations, said museum officials. It is to recount the his- tory of anti-Semitic pogroms, from the mid-17th century to the Kielce massacre after World

War II. It will tell the story not just

of Poland’s “righteous Gentiles” who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II, but of the Poles who turned Jews in to the Gestapo, knowing they would be executed.

Scholars are assembling a vast database that will allow visitors of Polish Jewish descent to look up their town of origin. The aim is “you press a button, say I want to see my town, and the museum will surround you with information, visually and

in all other forms,” said Peter Jassem, the museum’s Polish- born Canadian representative.

In designing the building with an outwardly boxy appearance, architect Mahlamaki _ whose plan was chosen from among 250 entries from 36 countries _ intentionally sought to avoid upstaging the monument to the heroes of the Jewish ghetto up- rising, which stands across from the main entrance, Jassem said.

“From an architect’s point of view, this place in the heart of the former Warsaw ghetto, calls for respect,” said Jassem, himself an architect. “You can- not overpower this place by overdramatic architecture. The outside is very simple. . . . The interior tells the story.”

The wave-shaped entrance hall is intended to symbolize the parting of the Red Sea that al- lowed Moses to lead the ancient Hebrews out of Egypt and into the promised land _ but also the deep chasm representing the near complete rupture of Jew- ish life here caused by the Ho- locaust.

Poland once counted 3.3 mil- lion Jews among its population; today there are a few more than 7,000, according to museum of- ficials.

• Associated Press