The Library of the Krasiński Family Entail (Biblioteka Ordynacji Krasińskich) was one of the most important Polish libraries before World War II. It contained a quarter of a million items that had been systematically collected by the Krasiński family since the sixteenth century. The Library’s headquarters at Okólnik Street opened in 1930 and was the most modern library and museum building in Poland. During World War II, the Germans also moved the most valuable collections from the National Library and the University Library to Okólnik and, after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, deliberately set fire to the entire collection there.

The Library was founded by Wincenty Krasiński, father of the national poet Zygmunt Krasiński, who inherited the family’s book collections. The Krasińskis are one of the most important and influential families in Polish history. They placed great emphasis on education and scholarship, which naturally meant having a large collection of books. The wife of Wincenty Krasiński, Maria Urszula Krasińska née Radziwiłł, added the magnificent eighteenth-century collection of Tomasz Czapski to the Library, which she brought as her dowry.

Founded in 1844 in Warsaw, the Library opened its collection to the public in 1860 after the incorporation of Konstanty Świdziński’s collection from the Polish Museum. Up until the outbreak of World War II, the Library also accepted many valuable legacies and family archives in the form of donations or deposits. In 1939, the collection numbered approximately 250,000 items.

The Library also published valuable critical editions of its most interesting printed works and manuscripts – a total of more than 30 volumes in three separate series.

Originally, the Library was located in the Krasiński Palace, also known as the Czapski Palace (the current seat of the Academy of Fine Arts on Krakowskie Przedmieście). In 1913, it was moved to the new, unfinished building on Okólnik Street, and from January 1914, a makeshift reading room was opened. The completion of the construction and the official opening of the building by Count Edward Krasiński took place on 2 December 1930.

During the September Campaign, the Library’s headquarters were severely damaged. Bombs and artillery shells destroyed the reading room, along with some of the museum rooms and the staircase. The building, which had no heating, began to be affected by damp. Despite the unfavourable storage conditions, the Germans decided to move the most valuable collections of the National Library and the manuscripts of the University Library to the building – almost 75,000 manuscripts and historic maps (including 5,600 musical manuscripts and 13,000 theatre manuscripts), as well as 2,000 incunabula, a collection of engravings, drawings and photographs totalling 160,000 items, and 50,000 early printed books, including the collection of the Załuski Library recovered from the Soviet Union under the Treaty of Riga. Thus, Okólnik became home to the largest collection of manuscripts in the country, the first and most important collection of source materials on Polish history.

The destruction of the Library’s collection occurred during the Warsaw Uprising. The first act of the drama took place on the night of 4–5 September, when five bombs destroyed two floors of the building. Thanks to heroic efforts by library staff and local residents, the fire was extinguished. There are records of these dramatic events which describe the custodians risking their lives trying to save the collection by throwing it out of the windows of the burning building. The losses were severe, but the most valuable collections survived – the manuscripts, incunabula and early printed books that were kept in the Library’s cellars.

A day later, on 6 September, the Germans occupied the building. On the orders of SS Obersturmführer Moritz Arnhardt, manuscripts written in Schwabacher script from the collection of the eighteenth-century Załuski Library – the first Polish national library – were looted and taken to Fischhorn Castle in Austria. In fact, this was not the first time literary artefacts stored at Okólnik had been stolen: During the occupation, manuscripts were taken away by Kajetan Mühlmann acting on behalf of Herman Göring.

The last, most tragic act of the drama took place in mid-October 1944. Special Wehrmacht units known as Brandkommandos entered the cellars of the destroyed building with flamethrowers and burned all the collections there. This act of libricide was carried out in violation of the Treaty on the Cessation of Hostilities in Warsaw, signed on the night of 2–3 October in Ożarów, which guaranteed that objects of artistic and cultural value would be removed and saved. The urn containing the ashes of the burnt collections is a testament to this crime against Polish culture and science.

The deliberate burning of the Krasiński Library and the most valuable collections of the National Library and the University Library that were housed in it was a blow to the very heart of Polish culture. We still feel the effects of this barbaric act to this day.

After World War II, the few surviving remnants of the Krasiński Library were transferred to the National Library. The permanent exhibition includes one item from this collection, the Konstytucja dla Europy (A Constitution for Europe) by Wojciech Jastrzębowski – a set of “lasting and just norms” published on 3 May 1831, on which basis it was hoped the nations of Europe could live in peace with each other.