WARSAW - Construction on the long-awaited Museum of the History of Polish Jews will begin in the Polish capital next fall, and the museum's doors are expected to open within three years.

Warsaw's chief architect, Michal Borowski, confirmed on Monday that work on the multimillion dollar multimedia facility would finally begin after more than a decade of preparation.

The museum will be built in an area of the city that was the center of Jewish life prior to World War II, but was then transformed by the Nazis into the Warsaw Ghetto. It will focus not only on the Holocaust, but also on the 800 years of Jewish life in Poland that the Holocaust obliterated. Poland's Jewish community numbered some 3.5 million prior to World War II, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the country's pre-war population. However, the vast majority died in the Holocaust.

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The building, designed by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamaeki and Ilmar Lahdelma, will feature a symbolically ruptured facade opening onto undulating walls, an allusion to the parting of the Red Sea, through which Moses led the Jews from Egypt to Israel. Holocaust and Jewish history expert Professor Israel Gutman heads the team preparing the exhibits.

Financed by the Polish government, Warsaw City Council and private donors, the project will cost some $55 million. It is expected to attract some 250,000 to 500,000 visitors each year.