On October 12, at Bartosza Głowackiego Street in Bolesławiec, the Rose Square named after Stefania Tajcher was officially named, and a memorial plaque dedicated to Bolesławiec’s first teacher was unveiled.
Municipal officials:
Stefania Tajcher—a teacher in a “striped uniform,” who loved children and cared about their education. She gave the children of Bolesławiec the treasure of education.
The ceremony honoring Stefania Tajcher was opened by Bolesławiec Mayor Piotr Roman, who paid tribute to Bolesławiec’s first teacher, recalled the beginnings of education in the city after World War II, and thanked the initiators of the idea to commemorate Bolesławiec’s teachers—the pioneers and organizers of education in 1945–47—which originated with the Bolesławiec Seniors’ Council.
Let us recall. In May, we reported that the Bolesławiec City Council had adopted a resolution “on naming a square in the city of Bolesławiec.” Seventeen councillors voted in favor.
Earlier, the Bolesławiec Seniors’ Council had submitted a request to Mayor Piotr Roman to name part of the municipal green areas on Głowackiego Street “Rose Square named after Stefania Tajcher.” The justification for the document stated:
(…) Stefania Tajcher arrived in Bolesławiec on September 7, 1945, wearing a camp “striped uniform.” The city lay in ruins. There were no schools or school administration. Stefania Tajcher began working at the County Office, dreaming of organizing a Polish school in the near future. With this goal, she personally went to the education authorities in Legnica, where she received support from Marian Dziubiński.
After returning with the assignment she had received, she immediately began the pioneering organization of a school. Her aim was to organize a school for children from Polish families arriving in Bolesławiec in repatriation and resettlement transports. Following a teachers’ council meeting attended by Stefania Tajcher, Marian Dziubiński and Eugenia Trzaskowska (later Trzaskowska-Mazur), it was decided that the school year would begin on October 1, 1945.
According to the recollections of Eugenia Trzaskowska-Mazur: “Miss Tajcher wrote an announcement about school enrollment on the reverse side of former German forms and pasted it on a post near the school (the former German school at 6 Komuny Paryskiej Street) and near the town hall.”
In the ruins of houses, she searched for equipment, furniture and materials useful for furnishing a classroom and transported them on a cart. This is how residents remembered her. A teacher in a “striped uniform,” who loved children and cared about their education.
Later that same year, seeing the enormous need, in the period after Christmas 1945, Stefania Tajcher and Marian Dziubiński (who had already moved to Bolesławiec and become the first post-war School Inspector) opened the first class of a general secondary school, marking the beginning of I LO.
Stefania Tajcher became the first head of the newly established Primary School No. 1 in the 1945/1946 school year. She also taught German at the so-called eleven-year school (the I LO building). In her diary, Stefania Tajcher wrote under the date October 8, 1945: “On October 1, 1945, a solemn service and the opening of the first school in Bolesławiec took place. And so October 1, 1945, will be written in golden letters in Bolesławiec, because after more than 600 years, a school was established in the Piast Lands, in the Polish town of Bolesławiec.” The history of education in Bolesławiec was written in “golden letters,” but the name of Stefania Tajcher was also written in “golden letters” forever.
What do you think? We invite you to join the discussion.
The late Paweł Śliwko on Stefania Tajcher: https://pawelsliwko.blogspot.com/2015/07/wielka-misja-stefanii-tajcher.html.
See also the entry from Stefania Tajcher’s diary: https://istotne.pl/boleslawiec/wiadomosc/ovS/z-pamietnika-stefanii-tajcher.