Murale: Doły

Doły is a district of Łódź where two completely different mural stories mix together: a colourful street art gallery from the Urban Forms festival, and a separate, moving series of portraits commemorating the children held at the German camp on Przemyslowa street. The murals in Doły cluster mainly around Nowomiejska, Mlynarska and Wojska Polskiego streets, so most of them can be seen on a single, several-hour walk. This page splits them into two routes: the Urban Forms gallery and the memorial trail.

The Urban Forms gallery - international artists on one street

At Nowomiejska 5 stands a mural by the Belgian artist ROA from 2013 - black-and-white weasels in his recognisable style. A few doors down, at Nowomiejska 10, there is a mural based on a design by Tadeusz Piechura from 2012, a portrait of the avant-garde artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski. At Wojska Polskiego 82, it is worth stopping at the mural by SHIDA, an Australian artist born in Łódź, featuring psychedelic insect-monster figures.

On Mlynarska, at number 15, two murals by Israeli artists from 2016 stand side by side, both created as part of a project by the Urban Forms Foundation: “Searching Safety (The Bird)” by DEDE and “Anutsa/Primavera” by Untay - a portrait of the artist's grandmother, the only member of her family to survive Auschwitz. At Mlynarska 2 stands the black-and-white “Thank You” mural by Stromie Mills, a Welsh-Australian artist, from the same year. A separate mural by DEDE at Organizacji WiN 10 shows interwoven bandages as a symbol of healing personal and community trauma.

At Wspolna 6 there is a surrealist mural by the duo Raku and Barys from 2012, and at Północna 47/51 there is a mural on the facade of the Music Theatre from 2015, created by several artists, visible from outside the building, which has been operating since 1964.

The memorial trail - portraits of children from the Łódź ghetto

A separate, more solemn 2016 series of murals by Piotr Saul and Damian Idzikowski commemorates the children held in the Łódź ghetto and at the German camp for Polish children on Przemyslowa street - the only camp of its kind in the Third Reich, operating from 1942 to 1945. Two murals are dedicated to specific, named individuals: Abramek Koplowicz at Wojska Polskiego 70b, a young poet from the ghetto who died in Auschwitz, and Abram Cytryn at Starosikawska 18, also a young poet murdered in Auschwitz.

The rest of the series consists of portraits of unnamed children, placed at several points across the district, mainly on Franciszkanska, Przemyslowa, Reja, Starosikawska and Wojska Polskiego streets. At Franciszkanska 13 you will see a boy deported to the ghetto in 1941, and at Starosikawska 23, an unnamed girl from the Roma camp within the Łódź ghetto. Several murals with the subtitle “Prisoner of the camp for Polish children” and “Boy from the camp for Polish children” recur at various spots in the district - on Przemyslowa, Reja and Wojska Polskiego streets - each with a different portrait, some recreated from archival photographs. One of them, at Wojska Polskiego 112, was created for the seventieth anniversary of the camp's founding, and the portrait at Przemyslowa 13a stands a few dozen metres from the camp's former entrance.

How to plan a walk around the murals in Doły

The Urban Forms gallery and the memorial trail partly overlap, since some murals stand on the same streets - Wojska Polskiego or Mlynarska - so it is worth combining both threads into a single walk rather than doing two separate routes. All the murals are freely accessible year-round, since they sit on the outside walls of buildings. The memorial trail has a different character from the colourful street art gallery - it is worth planning it with awareness of the subject matter, without rushing.

Frequently asked questions about murals in Doły

How many murals are there in the Doły district?
On this page we have gathered twenty-two murals - over a dozen from the international Urban Forms gallery and a series of portraits commemorating children from the Łódź ghetto and the German camp on Przemyslowa street.

Is visiting the murals in Doły free?
Yes, all the murals sit on the outside walls of buildings and can be viewed free of charge at any time of day.

What is the memorial trail on Przemyslowa street?
It is a 2016 series of murals by Piotr Saul and Damian Idzikowski, commemorating the children imprisoned in the Łódź ghetto and at the German camp for Polish children, which operated at this site from 1942 to 1945.

How long does a walk around the murals in Doły take?
Most murals lie within a walk of a dozen or so minutes from one another, so seeing the whole route usually takes two to three hours, depending on your pace.

A full list of murals across the whole city can be found on the murals in Łódź page, and murals in another district of Bałuty on the murals in Stare Polesie page. The category of murals across the whole region is gathered at murals, and other Łódź attractions are on the attractions in Łódź page.