Cultural Heritage of Lower Silesia
At its off-site meeting on 15 December 1995 in Jelenia Góra, the Lower Silesian Social and Cultural Association announced that 1996 would be the “Year of the Cultural Heritage of Lower Silesia”.
The millennium celebrations in Lower Silesia, initiated in 1990 to mark the 1,000th anniversary of the incorporation of Silesia into Poland, have already been under way for six years and will continue until 2000.
Over the course of five years, the most important events in these celebrations took place in 1991, when the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Legnica was commemorated, and in 1993–1994, when ceremonies were held to mark the anniversary of the death of Jadwiga of Silesia—Saint Hedwig, wife of Henry the Bearded, mother of the Silesian princes and patron saint of Silesia.
In principle, 1996 was to be a year in which the heritage not only of the earlier history of Piast Silesia would be emphasized, but also what those who settled here during the past 50 years had accomplished in Silesia and the significant contribution they had made to the development of this land.
DTSK is planning numerous academic conferences, such as “The Cultural Life of Lower Silesia”, “The Regional Book in Silesia”, “Organization of the Summer School for Regionalists”, “The 40th Anniversary of DTSK”, “The Regionalists’ Rally beneath Ślęża”, and many, many others.
The year 1996 should result in further publications, including subsequent monographs of Silesian towns, among them a monograph of Bolesławiec.
At the end of 1996, the organization of the Congress of Lower Silesian Regionalists is planned.
Regional associations in Silesia, of which there are more than 150, including the Bolesławiec Enthusiasts’ Association, are actively joining the 1996 celebrations.
The small homelands of Silesia and their activities confirm that, by the third generation since the return to the Piast lands, Lower Silesia has developed an important cultural heritage that also matters on a European scale. This is the shortest road to Europe.
ZB
On 15 November 1945, after a three-day journey in a freight train, a transport of displaced persons from the Kielce region arrived in Bolesławiec. It was snowing and cold, and my entire family ended up on the stone floor of the station waiting room with all our belongings, including a nanny goat. I had not yet reached eight years of age, carrying with me a hazy memory of the nightmare of the occupation and that long journey lying on a featherbed spread out in the wagon. But I spent that very night in a spacious, empty house on Karola Miarki Street, which my father had chosen earlier. The street was then called Friedrichstrasse, but that did not concern me, because I was fascinated by my new surroundings. Countless times I flicked the contact switch and each time was amazed that, at my request, the light went out or came on and was brighter than a kerosene lamp. I turned on the tap and—would you believe it?—water came out! I turned the knob of a mysterious box marked “Telefunken” and music could be heard! For an eight-year-old, these were shocking discoveries, because in the impoverished Kielce countryside people had not even imagined electricity, sewage systems and similar wonders.
Soon my mother took me to a school housed in an impressive building at 7 Stalina Street, and in this way I became a pupil in the second grade of primary school. The classrooms contained nothing, and desks had to be arranged; for some reason, there were puddles of water on the floor. My first teacher, Stefania Tajcher, drew writing lines on sheets of paper and instructed the parents to make notebooks. Probably at the beginning of 1946, this impressive and best-preserved building was designated as the seat of the municipal court, and the school was moved to a building on the corner of Teatralna and Fornalska streets (?). The new school was named after Bolesław Chrobry, but it had no number because it was, after all, the only school in the city...
On my second-grade leaving certificate, dated 28 June 1946, there is a stamp reading: Public Primary School of Bolesław Chrobry in Bolesławiec. At the bottom of the certificate are the signatures: School Head Tajcherówna Stefania, Class Supervisor Mazur Bronisław. I may also boast about the grades I received that school year: conduct—very good, religion—very good, Polish—very good, arithmetic and geometry—very good, drawing—satisfactory, practical activities—good, singing—good, physical exercises—very good. Not such bad grades, are they?
What stayed in my memory from my time at school were the long, dark corridors and a sharp smell, probably of substances used to impregnate the wooden floors. In the corner of the large playground, on the rampart, there was a small square, a place for games during breaks. A huge tree—a maple—grew there, and its winged fruits, or “noses”, served us for schoolboy pranks.
Every day before lessons, the entire school gathered in the playground, or, in bad weather, in the school corridor, and sang under Mr Mazur’s baton the hymn “When the Morning Dawns Arise” and recited the prayer “Angel of God, My Guardian”. These communal prayers apparently ended in 1948, and I remember only Mr Mazur telling us that we were no longer allowed to pray in public, but “we will pray quietly in class”. Soon those quiet prayers ended too, but the children, of course, did not know the background to the events of which this ban was a consequence. UNRRA packages arrived at the school, and the children helped carry them in and sort piles of clothing, school supplies and food—and... cod-liver oil! Cod-liver oil became our scourge because it tasted bitter and was greasy, while the teachers were merciless and ordered us to drink the concoction. Today I apologize to them and express my gratitude to those wonderful people who were saving the health of undernourished children.
The lower floors of the school building housed a kitchen where every child had to drink a mug of hot milk every day. And again those “cruel” teachers made sure the children drank the mug of milk, even though not every child loves milk, right? But at the time—as I say today, fortunately—there was no “children’s rights charter” and no one to appeal to...
I experienced many stresses appropriate to my age. One of them was my school satchel. There were no shops selling school equipment then, so parents dealt with the problem in different ways. My father made a satchel himself out of wood, or more precisely, plywood. He attached soldiers’ shoulder straps to the casing of this “box” and, proud of his invention, ordered me to carry my books in it. No arguments from my parents could ease my humiliation, but another source of stress soon overshadowed the satchel. My mother bought me an ushanka for the winter. The enormous Soviet military cap, tied under the chin with cords, was the height of misfortune for me... Never mind that most pupils wore identical ushankas, and never mind that it was very warm and comfortable.
When protests did not help, I would leave the house obediently, dressed as I was supposed to be, then quickly take off the cap in the street and march on with my head uncovered.
From 1948, the school named after B. Chrobry was numbered 1, and Mrs Zamorska became my class teacher. She made me fall in love with history. I listened spellbound to stories about the brave King Batory and the borderland fields, and very much wanted to live in those times; my passion for history remains with me to this day.
Mrs Zamorska had a preschool-aged son, an incredible rascal. She probably had nowhere to leave him, because Boguś often stayed in class during his mother’s lessons and caused terrible mischief. He jumped over the desks, making Indian cries, or ran out of the classroom. His mother would interrupt the lesson to chase after him, while we had a whale of a time.
I began the new school year in 1948 at the next school—the Primary and Secondary General Education School, popularly known as the “General School”, on Leningradzka Street, where everything already resembled a normal school. My first class teacher was Sławomir Zygmunt, a Polish teacher who aspired to broaden the students’ cultural development beyond the standard curriculum. He organized self-education clubs and initiated various school ceremonies at which his pupils sang and recited poems. Once he selected me to recite the famous poem “Ordon’s Redoubt” at a commemorative assembly. Long hours of laborious memorization of the poem began, followed by polishing its form, intonation and all its other artistic qualities. Mr Zygmunt—yes, that is his surname—devoted many after-school hours to me, and I even went to his apartment, where we held dress rehearsals.
But the following year, this Polish teacher left the school, and my class teacher once again became the wonderful, beloved Mr Mazur, a legendary figure. He was a true educator, a man of extraordinary kindness who loved young people, although he sometimes tried to appear stern. Like a real father, he disciplined unruly pupils, leading them by the ears to the corner or striking their open hands with a ruler. Perhaps that is why I am not opposed to physically disciplining children, because I still remember Professor Mazur’s genuinely fatherly ruler strokes. He used original teaching methods that all his pupils presumably remember. For example, for multiplication tables he would draw a circle with the digits 0 to 9 on the blackboard and place, say, the number 5 in the middle. The Professor would silently point with his ruler to the number 9, and the pupil had to answer instantly—45! In this way he could exercise our reflexes for an entire lesson, but in return we knew the multiplication table “by heart”.
(to be continued)