We have repeatedly reported that the scouting community would like the park on Tyrankiewiczów Street—which was never officially Waryński Park—to be named after Scoutmaster Hubert Bonin.
Will this happen? The councillors will decide during the September session of the Bolesławiec City Council. The justification for the draft resolution reads:
The Headquarters of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association’s Bolesławiec District, named after the Grey Ranks, submitted a request to the Bolesławiec City Council to name the park located between Parkowa, Podgórna and H.W. Tyrankiewiczów streets after SCOUTMASTER HUBERT BONIN. The request received a positive opinion from the Infrastructure and Construction Committee of the Bolesławiec City Council.
Scoutmaster Hubert Bonin was born on 13 September 1912 in Bydgoszcz. In 1929, he graduated from the Commercial School and then continued his education at a school of pharmacy and chemistry. That same year, he joined the 7th Bydgoszcz Scout Troop named after Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, making a promise to which he remained faithful throughout his life.
In 1934–1935, he completed his compulsory military service (because of his profession, he was assigned to the sanitary company of the Military Hospital in Toruń), and later worked at a Bydgoszcz drugstore while simultaneously leading his original scout troop.
In 1938, the troop under his leadership received the Master Troop diploma of the Scout Banner. In March 1939, he was appointed to the rank of assistant scoutmaster.
From 1 September 1939, he fought in the ranks of the “Pomerania” Army. As a soldier, he was taken prisoner by the Germans—he was held in prisoner-of-war camps in Łowicz and later in Łódź.
Released from the camp, he returned to Bydgoszcz, where on 19 May 1940, after taking an oath, he became a member of the Grey Ranks and the Union of Armed Struggle. From March 1943, he was forced to work at a plant producing explosives. This was punishment for his entire family’s refusal to sign the Volksliste.
He passed information about the factory to the underground resistance, as a result of which it was blown up in August 1943 as part of sabotage activities.
On 8 August 1944, he was arrested together with his brother. During the investigation, both were tortured by the Bydgoszcz Gestapo, and after a month they were placed in Stutthoff concentration camp. In the final period of the war, during the camp’s evacuation, he and other prisoners were placed below the deck of a barge that was to be sunk in the Baltic Sea. His brother met that fate, but he managed to survive.
He continued the evacuation on foot, in a column of emaciated prisoners, until the day of liberation.
After convalescing and staying in a transit camp until November 1945, he returned to Bydgoszcz. On 17 February 1946, he arrived in Bolesławiec with his future wife, Jadwiga. On 1 April 1946, he opened a drugstore there, and soon afterward founded the first scout troop in Bolesławiec. The troop founded by Brother Bonin chose Prince Józef Poniatowski as its patron.
Unfortunately, the patron’s identity proved ideologically too unacceptable to the political authorities in the new post-war reality. Hubert Bonin was therefore emphatically and unambiguously advised that the patron should be changed to Gustaw Morcinek.
Consent to the change did not save the troop leader from being removed from work with young people soon afterward. Besides, he himself did not see a place for himself in the Scouting Organization operating within the Union of Polish Youth. The organization imitated the Soviet pioneer movement and used symbols foreign to Polish scouting, and he did not want to submit to this indoctrination.
Brother Bonin returned to leading his beloved “One” only after Stalin’s death and the later political and social changes it set in motion. These led to the National Congress of Scouting Activists in Łódź in December 1956, which restored much of the movement’s programmatic principles, as well as its traditional badges and symbols.
Pre-war instructors were also permitted to maintain official contact with young people. He was a delegate to scouting congresses.
Until 1978, he worked at the Bolesławiec Vials and Ampoules Factory “Polfa,” after which he retired. As soon as circumstances became favorable, he returned to active instructional work, organizing camps for the 1st Bolesławiec Scout Troop even in the 1990s and leading the unit himself.
Many older residents of Bolesławiec clearly remember the troop’s ceremonial marches, which always preceded its departures for camping trips and hikes. During Easter, scouts in proper uniforms also stood an honor guard at the Lord’s Tomb. Scoutmaster Hubert Bonin held various positions in the district, even serving as deputy commander of this entire ZHP organizational unit.
He was always involved in the city’s social affairs, especially scouting. As a former member of the Grey Ranks, a soldier in the September Campaign and the Home Army, he was always ready to serve Poland with his knowledge, experience and commitment. He was a great yet exceptionally modest man.
By Resolution No. XLIII/430/05 of 28 December 2005, the Bolesławiec City Council made Hubert Bonin an honorary citizen of Bolesławiec.
Hubert Bonin died on 26 March 2008.
(Prepared on the basis of the Bolesławiec Yearbook).
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