It is an undeniable paradox that a person’s thought may outlast their life: it remains after them—despite its fleeting nature and lack of material dimensions; it is quoted, interpreted and empirically verified in practice, which is the highest criterion of truth. Such a beautiful thought was expressed by the French educator Jean Condercet, writing about the process of discovering students’ hidden talents:
“Every key of the human personality must be touched to know which one will respond with the most beautiful sound...” Bolesławiec was fortunate to have virtuoso teachers who left a lasting mark on their students’ consciousness and diligently sifted diamonds from the school’s stream of pure water. People who entered legend, like masters of the highest class—warm-hearted and perfect virtuosos—Helena and Wincenty Tyrankiewiciowie.
The biography of the distinguished professors of the local General Secondary School is a true concert for two hearts and four hands—graceful and solemn, moving and beautiful. No wonder, since throughout their long lives they perfected their playing, writing the notes of a pedagogical poem. A long and creative one, like their own shared life story, inscribed in the cornerstone of the first Polish school in the town on the Bóbr. A pianist-teacher... How aptly this description reflects the sum of the quiet and hardworking family’s educational achievements.
On 15 June 1970, a beautiful ceremony was held at the General Secondary School to unveil a plaque bearing, carved in rough stone, the words: “In memory of Helena and Wincenty Tyrankiewicz, distinguished teachers, friends of young people, founders of a scholarship in their name.” Fresh flowers laid by girls and boys always lie beneath it. It is a lasting element of tradition and a beautiful symbol of a living bond at the meeting point of generations.
...They captivated young people with their extensive knowledge, nobility and wisdom of life. It may sound like a platitude, a duty arising from the principles of professional ethics, yet how many shades and colours their lessons contained. And how deeply they loved young people, how well they understood their needs, if in the will of December 1966 the wife, who outlived the professor, wrote: “Everything that remains after me I dedicate to the Wincenty Tyrankiewicz Aid Fund at the Parents’ Committee of the W. Broniewski General Secondary School in Bolesławiec.” At that time, this was unprecedented on a national scale.
They were people of action, painfully tested by the years of war. They took part in clandestine education. A patriotic passage remains in the records: “We understood that protecting physical life alone was not enough to preserve Poland; to achieve this goal, it was necessary to preserve everything that constituted and drove its spirit, and to pass this substance on to young people—without it, Poland would perish.”
From 1947 onward, they tied their lives to the town on the Bóbr. They stayed here. They worked for Poland, devoted themselves to young people and to the teacher’s passion for creation. With their hearts and actions, they became part of the reality of the secondary school, ever-present, overworked, rushed and absorbed in students’ problems, wholly kind to their pupils. The professor taught chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, geology and the study of Poland; his wife taught mathematics, Polish, foreign languages and the propaedeutics of philosophy. Like great people of the Renaissance, they were universal: the professor painstakingly assembled a book collection, organised a library, created a biology laboratory and established a unique Earth museum with a wealth of geological and mineralogical collections, while his wife wrote memoirs that found their way to “Ossolineum”.
On 27 September 1979, at the request of the school community, the municipal authorities named the street adjoining the General Secondary School after the distinguished educators. It is the most beautiful monument to human work, achievement, creative commitment and life’s passions in the service of the public.