Veit Stoss altarpiece in Kraków

The altarpiece was carved between 1477 and 1489 by the German-born sculptor Veit Stoss (known in Polish as Wit Stwosz) who lived and worked in the city for over 20 years.

In 1941, during the German occupation, the dismantled altarpiece was shipped to the Third Reich on the order of Hans Frank – the Governor-General of that part of occupied Poland.

[2] A few weeks prior to the outbreak of the Second World War and the German occupation of Poland, the Poles took the altarpiece apart and stored its main statues in crates dispersed across the country.

[1] The altarpiece survived the war in spite of heavy bombardment of Nuremberg, and was discovered by Count Emeryk Hutten-Czapski, who was attached to the Polish 1st Armoured Division, and it was returned to Poland in 1946,[2] where it underwent major restoration.

This one-third scale copy is the largest and most detailed work of its kind, and was commissioned in 2003 as a tribute to the immigrants from the former Galicia region of southeastern Poland who founded the parish in 1893.