From the memoirs of Adam Kowalski
Adam Kowalski’s memoirs are multifaceted and rich in detail, and arranging them to meet journalistic requirements presents some difficulty. In the previous issue of “Głos,” I tried to focus my own and the readers’ attention on the arrival of the first group of repatriates and on the pioneers’ first Christmas Eve in post-war Bolesławiec.
For lack of space, I omitted the thread about how Adam Kowalski, while searching for food, found work during the most difficult autumn period in the Polish army stationed in Suszki (they were called Brygadowce Łużyckie, not Łężyckie as was mistakenly printed).
The work involved leading out and looking after the “military” cows, which grazed in the surrounding meadows almost until winter.
Every day, Adam Kowalski left home very early in the morning and returned from Suszki late in the evening. On foot, of course. For looking after and supervising the cattle, he received bread and milk.
He even received some meat once. When winter came and it was no longer possible to graze the cows, someone advised Kowalski to set up some kind of workshop, preferably a watchmaker’s, since the Russians had many “trophy” watches and repairs could be paid for with tinned meat, hardtack or other products. However, one had to know about watches. One also needed a suitable set of tools.
Kowalski went to Kraków, bought or begged some old equipment from watchmakers, collected and read books about clocks at night, and thus, month by month, mastered the watchmaking trade. He opened his watchmaking shop beneath his apartment, at the corner of today’s Kubika and Kutuzowa Streets (there is now a radio and television repair shop there). The sign, painted with soot on cardboard, was in a foreign language. The words CZASOWYJ MASTER were meant to appeal to those who at that time truly made up the largest clientele.
During the pioneering years and under those conditions, people, like Adam Kowalski, became craftsmen or specialists by chance or necessity.
On Zacisze Street, Alfred Kotowski opened a bakery that initially produced and sold bread even without salt. Andrzej Czupkiewicz opened a meat and cold-cuts shop on Garncarska Street; Władysław Rynowiecki opened the first bicycle repair shop; magister Marceli Najder opened the first pharmacy; Zbigniew Aliński and Tadeusz Serwatka opened the first hotel with a restaurant in the market square (the building was later demolished); Franciszek Mizerka opened another restaurant (in the premises of today’s “Zajazd Śląski”); and so on.
On February 10, on the initiative of Czupkiewicz and Kowalski, the first meeting of craftsmen and merchants took place. The Association of Craftsmen and Merchants was established, with Józef Tarnawski as chairman and A. Czupkiewicz as deputy. A few months later, the craftsmen separated from the merchants, forming the Guild of Crafts.
In the spring of 1946, around 70 craftsmen from the city and Bolesławiec County gathered in the town hall chamber. Andrzej Czupkiewicz was elected Guild Elder, while Alfred Kotowski became Deputy Guild Elder. Zygmunt Sadzikowski became Secretary, and Adam Kowalski Treasurer. The story connected with the Guild’s first banner is particularly interesting. On October 26, 1947, the ceremony of blessing the banner was performed by Father Dr. Karol Milik from Wrocław. Adam Kowalski gave me a unique invitation to the banner-blessing ceremony. The invitation listed the names of the city’s most prominent personalities at the time, who formed the ceremony’s honorary committee.
The list was headed by Jan Kumosz—the starosta—followed by Aleksander Wrona, Chairman of the County National Council; Father Andrzej Gromadzki, dean of Bolesławiec; and Professor Tadeusz Szafran, Chairman of the Municipal National Council.
The following accepted the honor of serving as the banner’s godparents: Franciszek Ciastoń, deputy starosta; Marian Królikowski, headmaster of the secondary school; Władysław Tatarczan, headmaster of the vocational school; Feliks Niebieszczański, head of the Tax Office; Rudolf Skorupa (brother of Alojzy Skorupa, a veterinarian who also worked as the first photographer, with his studio located above “Aniołek”); physician Józef Kłosowski, founder and first director of the hospital; military physician Emilian Doubrawa; Władysław Polański, the first head of the Trade Department; engineer Tadeusz Markowski (who established a faience-products factory, today’s “Bolesławiec” Ceramic Plants); Ryszard Grochowski, the first judge of the County Court (located in the present building of the Schools of Economics on Komuny Paryskiej Street, then called Sikorskiego); Bolesław Konnan, the first commander of the RKU, holding the rank of captain; and others.
On one side of the Guild’s banner, an eagle and the city’s coat of arms were embroidered; the other side showed the Holy Family (St. Joseph was the Guild’s patron) and bore the inscription “God, honor, homeland.”
The Guild’s banner caused considerable trouble for the organizers of May Day marches. The political authorities strongly objected to the images of saints and the inscription, while the craftsmen felt it improper to march without a banner. They came up with the idea of sewing the “holy elements” inside, and that is what happened.
One year, the banner was sent to some provincial ceremony in Wrocław, where it disappeared. The craftsmen of Bolesławiec were told that they had to obtain a more secular banner anyway, and that the existing one had to be sent to a museum. Adam Kowalski once went to Wrocław and searched all possible museum locations. No trace of the first banner of the Bolesławiec Guild was found.
Perhaps one of the readers knows something about it?
Readers’ note: This year marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Polish repatriation groups in Bolesławiec. With excerpts from Adam Kowalski’s memoirs, we have in a sense begun a series of memories and diaries from the pioneering years. We encourage other readers to submit their memories, diaries and stories about those years. Materials may be submitted in a “raw,” non-literary form. We will try to help everyone who expresses such a wish. We will gladly publish old photographs from the pioneering years. If we receive a larger number of memoirs, we will try to publish them in book or booklet form.