The world’s largest amateur race was held every year in May. From 1950, it was known as the Peace Race. It had 14 stages running through three countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR. The race covered almost two thousand kilometres and repeatedly passed through Lower Silesia, including Bolesławiec.
The 9th Peace Race (2–15 May 1956), won by Stanisław Królak, will remain forever in the memory of Poles, as will the 23rd Peace Race (12–26 May 1970), in which Ryszard Szurkowski won individually and the Polish team won collectively.
“I remember it because the housing cooperative quickly painted the blocks facing the street (1000-lecia Street – ed.), and we even had an hour off work while the cyclists passed. The whole plant went out to watch,” recalls one of the Peace Race spectators in Bolesławiec.
The Peace Race was a strongly propagandistic event. In the cities through which the peloton passed, boards displaying the race map and current results were installed. Similar, though smaller, structures were placed at workplaces. Along the cyclists’ route, banners were put up with political slogans and greetings in the competitors’ native languages. The way the event was reported was noteworthy—modern for its time. Television used helicopters and motorcycle reporters, who filmed the cyclists.
“I remember the Peace Race, when the peloton passed south along Karola Miarki Street. They flashed by quickly. Those were the days when, among others, Schur and Ampler were still leaders. I was a child,” recalls a woman from Bolesławiec.
The symbol of the Race was Picasso’s “dove of peace.” Picasso, a member of the French Communist Party, painted it on a napkin in the Monopol café in Wrocław when he visited Poland during the “World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace” in 1948.
“They also rode through Bolesławiec in the 1980s,” recalls another person. “We stood there as an entire class—indeed, the whole school! And everyone had a white cardboard dove of peace cut out and mounted on a stick,” they add.
The Peace Race in Lower Silesia
Cyclists such as Ryszard Szurkowski, Stanisław Szozda, and representatives of the region—Jan Brzeźny, Jan Jankiewicz and Marian Jankowski—stood out in Lower Silesia. Szurkowski was, among other things, a two-time Olympic silver medallist, a world championship medallist and Polish champion. Szozda was a two-time Olympic silver medallist, a five-time world championship medallist and winner of the Tour de Pologne. Marian Jankowski was a pioneer of cycling in Lower Silesia, competing in the first Peace Race in 1948 and in the Tour de Pologne.
The Peace Race was a social phenomenon that promoted cycling. Children wanted to have their own bicycle and race like Królak, Magiera, Szozda or Szurkowski. It was from this period that we inherited the humorous saying describing cyclists as “the wonderful children of two pedals.” This sporting event brought people together, and they recall that weaker cyclists were welcomed just like the best ones. When Swiss rider Visenti broke a pedal during one of the stages and continued riding with one leg, people pushed him uphill at the finish.
“There was a stage that ended at the stadium (in Bolesławiec – ed.). As scouts, we assisted the cyclists. A military blanket and a drink. I was lucky enough to assist the last competitor, 20 minutes after the peloton,” an internet user describes the event from years ago.
After 1990 and the breakup of the Eastern Bloc, the Peace Race lost importance. The races continued until 2006 thanks in part to the efforts of
Ryszard Szurkowski__, but although the route still passed through three countries, it never regained its earlier popularity.Photos from Bolesławiec during the Peace Race were taken by Władysław Haniszewski, and made available to us by his son, Tomasz Haniszewski.