It is hard to believe that Mr. Leon, a modest and exceptionally wise Man, is no longer among us. He was a true pioneer and discoverer of many unique natural specimens in the former Bolesławiec County. Always busy, kind to people and eager for conversation, he was a truly restless spirit: always on the move, always with a sketchbook and camera, traversing the area far and wide, preserving its beauty in descriptions and sketches, and discovering architectural details whose existence no one else even suspected. Fascinated by the natural world and the originality and richness of the local fauna and flora, he carefully recorded his impressions and experiences, later systematizing his knowledge and enriching and personally illustrating accounts of tourist trails and places where people stayed and travelled. He did so with passion, Benedictine patience, curiosity, and the immense talent of a researcher-traveller, scholar and discoverer. A true Renaissance man, a great hobbyist and a poet in his exceptional sensitivity to the beauty of the world around him.
Who Mr. Leon really was—we will never know. Perhaps an eternal scout, for he made no secret of his sentiment and respect for that patriotic organization and felt emotionally connected to it until the end of his days? After all, he was “Puchacz” of the “Szare Szeregi”, and only a few still know from personal experience what these symbolic terms mean. No description or definition can convey the emotional truth about the values to which Mr. Leon’s generation was attached. It was a different time, a different era, different people, different needs, different ideals, a different way of expressing one’s identity, and a different kind of service to Poland. Scout law and ethics prevailed, and a scout’s word could be relied upon as firmly as on Zawisza... A time of beautiful, pure and lofty ideals that have today shattered into thousands of atoms impossible to assemble into a single coherent composition. One needs great self-confidence to answer at the same time why this happened. Let history judge after the next changing of the generations’ guard.
He was a traveller, collector, sculptor, graphic artist, documentary draughtsman, photographer, journalist, writer, naturalist, historian, ecologist, tourist, pioneer-discoverer, a great lover of the Bolesławiec Land, and a man of broad intellectual horizons. All these statements are true and can easily be documented. With the passion of a scholar and the meticulousness of a genuine researcher, he traced the region’s medieval material culture. He was the foremost expert on the history and locations of penitential crosses, knew every corner of the impressive castle in Grodziec and the palace in Kliczków, and vividly recounted the story of Europe’s only horse cemetery beside that historic building. He could unfailingly find the crumbling walls of former defensive structures or the so-called Chrobry’s Embankments. The Lower Silesian Forests, especially the Bolesławiec–Zgorzelec Forest, revealed all their secrets to him: here he was the first to reach the honey-scented mezereon in early spring; here he discovered rare species of polar mosses, relics of distant eras; here he counted the mighty oaks of the Kwisa valley and great moss-covered boulders, rocks and even glacial caves. He marked out tourist trails, collected historical exhibits, wrote and drew, photographed and painted, carved linocut symbols of nature conservation, and commemorated important tourist and scouting events in linocut compositions—rallies, camps, gatherings, spring and baked-potato festivals, canoe trips on the Bóbr, and discoveries of rare specimens of fauna and flora. It was a beautiful and industrious life, one that could fill lengthy sagas—so many threads, achievements and passions were woven into it.
He was a pioneer; that is beyond dispute. All his successors shine with the reflected light of the achievements of the versatile, omnipresent and all-knowing Mr. Leon. We miss him greatly—even after years of absence. A great, irreplaceable and unique Man passed away. The Bolesławiec branch of PTTK funded an original monument in his memory, based on the design and idea of the deceased artist and painter Mieczysław Żołądź’s friend. Three bas-reliefs adorn the austere, simple, monumental stone: a portrait, the PTTK badge and the ZHP Cross. The plaque bears a laconic inscription: Leon Piątkowski. “Puchacz” of the Szare Szeregi. An outstanding regional-tourism expert. Perhaps his work should be commemorated by naming one of the streets after this distinguished resident of Bolesławiec?