As art historian and Ceramics Museum director Anna Bober-Tubaj says, it is possible that the city authorities decided to eliminate the church ruins by rebuilding them precisely after this monstrous crime. This may have been the beginning of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Bolesławiec, on Zamkowy Square.

Bolka II Castle

The name Zamkowy Square, where today’s Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help stands, recalls the original castle complex, which burned down in 1642 and was later dismantled on the orders of the Swedes. The defensive walls and the partially preserved stone belvedere are reminders of this complex.

The castle was the seat of Duke Bolko II in the first half of the 14th century. As Bolesławiec historian Mariusz Olczak describes the building in his 1998 historical guide to Bolesławiec, it was a multi-storey structure with basements, built on a rectangular plan with an internal courtyard. Ponds surrounded the castle to the south, while a moat lay to the north. The historian adds that the castle had a perfectly equipped armoury containing catapults, slings, spears and poisoned arrows. The only information about the interior decoration is a mention of a painting in one of the rooms depicting the Battle of Mohács in 1526.

The castle was seriously damaged during the Thirty Years’ War. A fire on 14 October 1642 brought about its demise. It was the Swedish captain Lattermann, the castle commandant supervising the dismantling of the castle tower, who ordered residents to bring wood and gunpowder into the rooms and then set the ruins on fire. The glow could be seen for many kilometres, and the fire itself lasted for many days.

Evangelical Church

In 1752, King Frederick II the Great handed over the former castle grounds and the square in front of it to the Protestant congregation in Bunzlau. Construction work lasted from June 1752, when the cornerstone of the Evangelical church was laid, until 1756, when the church was erected on a rectangular plan, with a single-space interior and galleries.

In 1835, construction of the Neo-Gothic tower designed by architect Friedrich Engelhardt Gansel was completed. He was responsible for many buildings in Bolesławiec, including the viaduct over the Bóbr. Three bells made by B. Pűhler of Godnow were installed in the tower. The congregation had the opportunity to hear them for the first time on New Year’s Eve 1935. In 1927, the Geittner Sőhne company from Wrocław cast three new bells from two old ones. The first was named Martin Luther, sounded in B and weighed 62 centners (a non-system unit of mass equal to approximately 50 kg—editor’s note). The second bell was named after Pastor Ernst Gotlieb Woltersdorff. It sounded in D and weighed 40 centners. The third and smallest bell was called the Children’s Bell, sounded in E and weighed 16 centners. The final, fourth bell did not have a properly resonant tone because it was out of tune. During World War II, these bells were melted down by the military for military purposes.

After 1945, the church continued to be used by Evangelicals, who were unable to maintain such a large building. As a result, the church fell into disrepair and was damaged. All the furnishings, including the organ, benches and tower clock, were stolen. In 1966, the city authorities took over the building and turned it into a warehouse for ampoules, now the “Polfa” pharmaceutical plant. After the roof and balconies collapsed, the warehouse was moved, and the building continued to deteriorate. According to state experts, it was 70% damaged.

A Story That Shocked the City

A macabre sexual crime took place in the ruins of the Evangelical church. We know the story from oral accounts by people who witnessed a police reconstruction carried out in 1966 or 1967—the witness did not remember exactly. This is his account:

“There was an entrance to the grounds of the ruined church from Kubika Street. A path worn by people led there. It was a place no one visited. Apparently, after being brutally raped, the woman crawled out of the ruins’ basement and died there. Her body was supposedly found by children playing in the ruins.

During the reconstruction, the rapists showed how they had dragged the woman along the path, raping her one after another. Then they were said to have carried her to the basement and left her there. The woman had been mutilated. Her breasts were said to have been cut, or even severed, and her vagina injured with a bottle.

One of the rapists, an eighteen-year-old, was reportedly turned in to the militia by his stepfather; another, 24 years old, was said to have boasted about his deed while drunk in the Old Town. Those arrested revealed the identities of further perpetrators.

The victim supposedly met her rapists at the Zodiak restaurant, now Technika Biurowa, where she had gone for a drink. They were said to have followed her from that restaurant and then attacked her.”

The Wild West

As Adam Banecki writes in his book “Bolesławiec County in 1945–50,” during the first post-war period the Polish administration faced an unprecedented situation: it had to replace the county’s entire population and organize life for people from very different backgrounds. The local administration had to organize cooperation among settlers from the former Yugoslavia, which was difficult because of mental and cultural differences.

Legends circulated throughout Poland about what life was like in these territories taken over by the Poles after 1945. It was precisely these stories that led to our region being called the “Wild West.”

Waves of people arrived in the city and county: displaced persons, German refugees, thousands of stationed Soviet soldiers, wartime stragglers from various armies, looters and ordinary criminals.

Witnesses from that period reported that looting and the rape of women were entirely commonplace. It is unsurprising that sometimes displaced persons who learned these stories refused to get off at stations in a place with such a bad reputation.

Undoubtedly, the Catholic Church played an important integrative role during those terrible post-war years. It is significant that in 1939 Bolesławiec County had only 175 Catholics compared with 59,219 Evangelicals. It was not until 1946 that the Polish priest Jan Motyka and Rev. Andrzej Gromadzki from near Lviv arrived in Bolesławiec; the latter took charge of the Bolesławiec deanery, comprising eight parishes. Female religious orders also appeared in the region: the Elizabethan Sisters, the Jadwigan Sisters and the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood of Christ.

The Catholic Church was the place where all the believing displaced persons integrated. Its role in identifying with the new homeland was noticed by the new communist authorities, which did not adopt extremely hostile attitudes toward it in 1945–47. This changed only after 1947.

Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

It is possible, although there is no evidence to support it, that after the brutal rape the authorities did not want a crime-ridden ruin to remain within the city. It is also possible that the efforts of the archbishop’s curia to rebuild the Evangelical church as a Catholic church were crowned with success on 31 July 1968. On that day, the Department of Religious Affairs at the Presidium of the Provincial National Council in Wrocław approved the lease of the building as a Roman Catholic church.

The archbishop’s curia appointed parish priest Canon Edward Bober to coordinate the legal matters concerning the rebuilding. The first funds for the renovation were received only on 11 June 1969, when the first basic tools were purchased. This began intensive work. The parishioners themselves made an enormous contribution to rebuilding the church, working voluntarily without expecting payment. Women and nuns also joined the work, although they helped by preparing meals. Creating the new building required great sacrifice, work and effort. However, thanks to this, preparations for the first Mass began as early as 23 December 1969, and the new church was thereby opened for use by the faithful.