Grażyna Hanaf was asked to say a few words about Notre Dame for TVN. The material was prepared by Andrzej Stefańczyk. The context for the conversation about Notre Dame was the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most prominent landmark in Bolesławiec, which has undergone a major renovation.
– Just two weeks ago, I was sitting in the square and admiring its beauty, – says Grażyna Hanaf. – When I saw it burning, the first pictures were sent to me by friends from Paris. I thought it was some historical photograph or a film. I could not believe it. And then, when it sank in, I thought that Our Lady (Notre Dame) would manage. It has collapsed more than once, because medieval architects built using trial and error; revolutionaries lit a fire inside it and also came very close to burning down the church, while many sculptures and other works of art were destroyed. The nineteenth-century Parisian conservator Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was worse than the fire, because he ordered it to be altered to match the way his contemporaries imagined Gothic architecture and carried out an aesthetic massacre on it. They will rebuild it, and once again we will enjoy it. Although for a sensitive person who loves beauty, a burning historic monument is a blow to the heart, – the journalist adds.
