"Let us hurry to love people -
they leave us so quickly..."
Rev. Jan Twardowski
I look at a group of girls in gray uniforms with polka-dot scarves, smiling at me from an old photograph. This is my scout troop from the former Bolesławiec "eleven-year school."
If there is anything good in me, I owe it precisely to scouting, which I joined toward the end of the difficult 1950s. I learned empathy, teamwork and resourcefulness, without even realizing at the time that I was learning anything. I ran to meetings as if on wings, immensely proud of my gray uniform. At school, in the scout room, in the attic, a wonderful woman was waiting for us: Scoutmaster Zosia Kłosowska. A warm, good, kind person who loved us. Today I know how much I owe Her. It is difficult for me to write about this, because I cannot find words that would fully convey the atmosphere of those happy days. Scoutmaster Zosia came, founded the troop and simply stayed with us. And that meant so much to us, very young girls. We did not know then that, wearing a military uniform, she had fought at Studzianki. She did not need to invoke her heroic past to win our hearts. She taught us scout law and traditions, and above all what she herself possessed in abundance: a smile, kindness and good manners. Her home was always open to us. How gladly we visited Her and absorbed the wonderful, warm family atmosphere.
Her two daughters, Bożena and Aśka, were with us. Then a third, Dorota, joined them as an infant, and we experienced her birth deeply. Sometimes Her husband, Dr. Józef Kłosowski—the director of the hospital at the time, and also an exceptionally kind man—would come into the garden (such a "wonderful—our garden").
Then came the final exams, university, and parting from the troop, but not from Scoutmaster Zosia. She was our "contact point"—whenever one returned to Bolesławiec, one could still meet at her home and find out "how everyone else was doing." Our successes made her happy, and she was interested in the paths our lives took; she was always ready to help and never made excuses—because it was we, busy building our adult lives, who failed to contact her for years, and then came back as if time had not passed, finding the same home, the same warmth, kindness and caring question: "How are you? You must be well, since you came. I am so happy..."
Scoutmaster Zosia also influenced my professional life, as always discreetly and tactfully. I remember when she asked me, then a young Polish-language teacher (in the early 1970s), to "come up with" some idea for a school gathering before Christmas. "So you hold Christmas assemblies at school?" I asked. "Why not? It isn't forbidden," I heard in reply. "Indeed," I thought, and, to the surprise of some colleagues, I began doing the same. That is why I did not have a "moral hangover" when the custom of Christmas Eve assemblies spread at the end of the 1980s, because it was already "allowed," and it was even expected that religious feelings be openly expressed.
The last time I visited Scoutmaster Zosia (that is what I still called Her—I, the mother of two grown sons) was in March 1993. If I had not known that she was terminally ill, I would never have thought that this elegant, always well-groomed and smiling woman was nearing the end of her days.
We reminisced about camps, meetings and campfires; we showed each other photographs—she showed pictures of her grandchildren, and I showed pictures of my sons; we planned a gathering of the "dinosaurs" for her name day in May, and talked about literature (she was then reading Z domu niewoli by Beata Obertyńska. I was shaken by that book; she knew the events described there firsthand, so for her they were like a bad dream, a recurrence of a nightmarish past). We never saw each other again. It consoles me that I managed to tell Her how greatly she had influenced my life, and how wonderful and happy the moments were that all of us, the scouts from the first ZHP troop in Bolesławiec, experienced thanks to Her—Scoutmaster Zofia Kłosowska, who on 10 July 1993 went on eternal watch. Czuwaj!