At the initiative of Barbara Smoleńska, coordinator of the “Save the Grave of Your Great-Grandfather from Oblivion” campaign, three participants in the Katyn Motorcycle Rally visited the Henryk Sucharski Comprehensive and Vocational School Complex in Bolesławiec on 15 May: Bogumił Kubiak, Michał Szeliga and Władysław Tokarski. The first two had already had the opportunity to visit our town. In November last year, they met with students of II LO.
The Katyn Rally, as Michał Szeliga emphasized, is a wonderful initiative. Every year, one hundred motorcyclists set out along the trails of the eastern borderlands, Polish history and Poles scattered across six countries. Everyone takes part: from teachers and students, through lawyers and doctors, to Boeing pilots.
The idea for the rally was born 13 years ago. Wiktor Węgrzyn came to Poland, noticed that Poles’ historical awareness was very limited, and decided that, together with his brother, who had miraculously survived Katyn, he would organize such a rally.
“Every year we cover 6,000 km through Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. We visit places connected with Polish martyrdom and also meet interesting people,” Michał Szeliga said during the meeting with ZSOiZ students.
“I have no eastern roots,” Władysław Tokarski, a retired police officer from Oleśnica County, said in an interview with “ii”. “But I always dreamed of being able to pay tribute to the Poles who were murdered in such a brutal manner.”
Władysław first heard about these events from his parents. “They spoke about it quietly, in confidence. Because during the times of the Polish People’s Republic, you could lose your job for that,” he stresses. In 2010, he took part in the Katyn Rally for the first time, for which he received a commemorative medal that he calls his relic. The decoration bears the telling inscription: “If I forget them, You, God in heaven, forget me.”
That day, students from Schulzentrum in Goerlitz were also guests at the school as part of the Polish-German “Healthy School – Gesunde Schule” project. “This initiative promotes a healthy lifestyle. This, in turn, gave us the idea of inviting the Katyn Rally motorcyclists, with whom we work together in Ukraine and with whom we are friends,” says Barbara Smoleńska. “Both initiatives have a common denominator: the conviction that it is worthwhile to be active and pursue one’s passions.”
It is not yet known whether the summer trip במסגרת the “Save the Grave of Your Great-Grandfather from Oblivion” campaign will take place. Everything depends on the political situation in Ukraine. We will return to the subject.
On 16 May, the Great Borderlands Concert was held at Wrocław’s Centennial Hall, during which the fifth edition of the “Save the Grave of Your Great-Grandfather from Oblivion” campaign was summarized. Delegations carrying school banners from around 200 Lower Silesian schools came to Wrocław.
For the third time, students of the Comprehensive and Vocational School Complex in Bolesławiec took part in the parade of school-banner delegations. But not only in the parade… Twenty-six students, together with friends from the eastern borderlands, came to Wrocław to attend the patriotic concert. Earlier, at school, they had each contributed one symbolic zloty toward saving Polish graves left beyond the eastern border. More information is available on the ZSOiZ website in Bolesławiec.
A TVP Wrocław program devoted to the “Save the Grave of Your Great-Grandfather from Oblivion” campaign and the Borderlands Concert.
(information: ii/ZSOiZ)