The Accident
Zygmunt suffered a serious accident in his childhood. He fell off his horse and broke his leg. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of doctors, he never recovered his full physical fitness. He limped to the end of his life, and the fall caused that Zygmunt, brought up as a passionate patriot, was forced to fight for Poland without a weapon – but with word and pen.
Zygmunt Lubicz Zaleski and his brother Stefan.
1882
Zygmunt Wacław Lubicz-Zaleski was born on the 29th of September in Klonowiec-Koracz, Radom.
He was one of the four children of Piotr and Zofia Arkuszewska. The environment in which he was raised was the intellectual elite of the nation, a family of landowners. Zygmunt spent his childhood and first years in Klonowiec, a small estate bought from Zofia's dowry. The property was administered by the father. He was an agronomist engineer and wanted his son to also have a chance to work in the Russian Empire.
The task that Piotr set for himself was to raise children in a sense of belonging to the Polish nation, love for Poland and instilling the principles of honesty and nobility.
The mother was a pianist. It is thanks to her that Zygmunt inherited the love of music. At the initiative of Zofia, the family sold the house and the farm and moved to the city of Radom. Zygmunt repeatedly said that his parents were strict and demanding, but the rules they taught him accompanied him to the end of his life.
Russification
From the early 1880s, the second phase of Russification continued in the Russian partition. Education was considered the basic means leading to Russification. Russian politics evoked powerful resistance in society.
Students of the Warsaw Polytechnic University, Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski is the first from the right. Circa 1910.
Zygmunt was always interested in arts. Since his early childhood, he thought of a musical career - he wanted to become a pianist, but his father claimed that it was an unworthy job that did not bring material benefits. His father foresaw a different course of development for his son. Zygmunt respected him and didn’t want to disappoint him. After long negotiations, Zygmunt began studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Warsaw at the engineering and construction department.
The political views of Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski, a student raised in a patriotic spirit, brought him close to a youth movement called Zet. A few friends, including Jan Purwin or Stanisław Gieysztor, together with Zygmunt, wanted to start more active activities, conduct self-education and organizational work. Zygmunt quickly introduced his brother Stefan, then a student of the high school in Radom, to underground activities.
Zygmunt worked in the High School Council, then in the Alliance for nationalization of Schools and finally in Zet's Warsaw structures.
The Citadel’s Pavilion X in Warsaw
was a place marked by death and suffering. Since 1833, the Russian authorities began to adapt rooms into prison cells in order to create a central detention facility for political prisoners. Hundreds of them were executed on the slopes of the fortress; thousands were deported to labour or exile.
Cell in the X pavilion of the Citadel
Zygmunt watched the influence of external events on what was happening in the Kingdom of Poland. He was an active student but his conspiracy did not escape the attention of the partitioning powers. At the beginning of 1905 those who were at the forefront of the movements aimed at separating the Kingdom of Poland from the Russian Empire were arrested. Zaleski was among them. He thought then that the inevitable punishment for him would be a deportation to Siberia.
1905
- Zygmunt's arrest by the Russian authorities
During his stay at the Citadel, Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was expelled from university. Fortunately, fate favoured him and he was released after 6 months in a cell. In October he was re-admitted to be a student. He knew, however, that he could be arrested again at any time. Therefore, he decided to emigrate for the first time.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski, together with his friend Jan Purwin, went to study philosophy in Berlin and then to Munich. In 1908, he returned to Poland, where he was appointed lecturer in history of Polish literature, in a school and also in Konopczyński's junior high school and at the teacher's seminar. The Russian authorities, however, were watching Zygmunt and his life closely. Under the threat of a next arrest, he decided to move to Paris.
Inauguration of the Polish Academy of Fine Arts in Paris in 1914; 3rd from left, standing: Władysław Mickiewicz
1910
- the threat of another arrest forced Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski to go to Paris, where he began his studies at the École des Hautes études sociales.
There, at the age of 26, already fully educated, he found himself in an environment of Poles who created a new, well-educated emigration in the French capital. Zaleski took up studies in Paris at the École des Hautes études Sociales (College of Social Sciences), which he successfully completed, defending his diploma thesis entitled La Lutte pour l'école polonaise (Fight for the Polish School). While in Paris, he wrote and sent many correspondences, reviews and articles to the Warsaw dailies, he also wrote works devoted to French literature and poetry, showing great knowledge of this subject as well.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski met many Polish artists in Paris, including Tadeusz Makowski, Xawery Dunikowski and Olga Boznańska.
Makowski painted a portrait of Zaleski (who is now in the National Museum in Warsaw) and illustrated a volume of poems by Zygmunt Zaleski 'On the edge between sleep and storm', Dunikowski sculpted the bust of Zaleski, and Boznańska painted several of his portraits.
On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Serbian conspirators carried out an attack on the Austrian-Hungarian heir to the throne, killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The events have been escalating. World War I began.
The outbreak of World War I
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski at work
1914 - 1916
- Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski taught Polish in École des Hautes études Sociales, he also started working at École des Langues Orientales et Vivantes.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski wanted to fight, but disability prevented him from it. Therefore, he initiated a series of conferences and lectures addressed to the French elite. They were mainly about Polish literature, culture and the political situation. Zaleski believed that culture is the most important weapon of Poles, including those in exile.
From 1893, France and Russia were united by a military alliance. French intellectuals could not imagine Poland detached from Russia. From a political and military point of view it was impossible. The only way out was to convince the elites that Poland and Russia couldn’t be one state, that they are two nations. Contemporaries claimed that thanks to these lectures, the French started to 'notice the Poles.'
On November 11, 1918 a truce between Germany and the Entente states was signed in a railway wagon in Compiègne.
In November 1918 an independent Poland began to revive. On November 7, the Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland was appointed with Ignacy Daszyński. The formation of the government provoked opposition from the centre and right-wing groups. This state of affairs continued until Józef Piłsudski returned from his prison in Magdeburg.
Piłsudski on November 18, as the Head of State, formed the first nationwide government headed by Jędrzej Moraczewski.
Conference at the Sorbonne
1919
- On January 18 a peace conference in Paris began
Representatives of the 27 countries of the victorious coalition attended the conference. A delegation of independent, reborn Poland was also invited to Paris. Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was invited by the authorities of the reviving Polish state to participate in the delegation, during a peace conference in Paris. He headed the press team, whose task was to collect information and shape public opinion.
During the conference, the Treaty of Versailles was signed - the main peace agreement ending the First World War, signed by Germany and the Entente countries on June 28, 1919. The treaty introduced a new political order in Europe.
Maria Zdziarska-Zaleska was born in Grotowice, near Rawa Mazowiecka, in 1898.
By her education, she got a patriotic and religious outlook. She studied at the Society for Scientific Courses, and then participated in lectures at the university's medical department, from which she was forced to give up until she obtained an eight-year matriculation exam. She passed her matriculation and in autumn 1916 she returned to medicine.
Maria in battalion uniform in 1919
Maria was an active woman, full of energy and willingness to act. She fought in the battle of Lwów, participated in the fight for Lida. She was awarded the Cross of Valour for the participation in the fighting, the Virtuti Militari V Class Order and the Independence Cross with swords, and she was promoted to the second lieutenant. Until the end of July 1921, she participated in three Silesian Uprisings. Then she returned to Warsaw to graduate in 1923 with the title of doctor of medicine.
After finishing her studies, Maria was practicing medicine in the Eastern Borderlands. Where she took care of children with tuberculosis. In 1924 she went to Paris to deepen her medical knowledge in the field of pulmonology. From the early years of her youth to the end of her life Maria was associated with the ZHP.
1925
- Maria Zdziarska and Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski got married
Maria and Zygmunt knew each other earlier, that's why after a re-meeting after many years, they quickly decided to live in Paris together. They had four children - Andrzej, Kazimierz Piotr, Roman and Monika - who were brought up in the spirit of patriotism and respect for tradition.
Zygmunt and Maria Zaleski 1930
After the war, Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski unsuccessfully tried to open a chair of Polish language at the Sorbonne.
However, he managed to organize a language network in many university centres in France, including in Paris, Strasbourg, Nancy, Grenoble or Lyon effectively promoting Polish language and culture. He also lectured at the Institute of Slavonic Studies.
During the twenty years of the interwar period, Zygmunt Zaleski was very active both in the political and literary fields.
He became a delegate of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education, he dealt with scholarship holders and collected information on cultural and political life. He did not neglect his own development. In 1927 he obtained a doctorate at the Jagiellonian University, in 1929 he was habilitated at the University of Warsaw, where in 1935 he received the title of professor. During holidays spent every year in Poland, he lectured in Warsaw.
Maria Zaleska, after marriage with Zygmunt, gave up her medical career. She dealt with home, family and social activities. She developed her medical interests by participating in numerous lectures on medical celebrities. A lot of her time involved her social work. She was active in FIDAC (the Inter-allied Veterans Federation), where she was a member of the council, and in the female section of that organization, Auxiliaire Féminine (International Federation of veterans), as a board member. She participated in numerous congresses: in Poland, the USA, Portugal, Czechoslovakia and Romania. She was also the vice-chairwoman of the Union for Female Civic Work.
German troops enter the captured Warsaw in 1939
1939
- World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, after the attack led by the Third Reich in agreement with the Soviet Union.
The Zaleski family found themselves in Grotowice. Zygmunt immediately left for Warsaw. He wanted to know where he would be most needed. Maria, a doctor with war experience, volunteered and was assigned to a military hospital in Rawa Mazowiecka. Grotowice has become a place of refuge for several dozens of people. Throughout September 1939 fledglings were arriving.
In the first months of 1940, Zygmunt Zaleski made contact with the Government in Exile in France - once again it turned out that he was the most effective in France - he knew many influential people and had many necessary contacts. Together with his son Andrzej, he managed to get to France by foot through the 'green border'. After reaching France, Andrzej was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died in a sanatorium in Pollionnay.
According to the terms of the ceasefire of 22th June 1940, nearly two-thirds of the French territory came under German occupation. The rest of France was to remain unoccupied. The period of the Vichy regime has begun.
Students and teachers of the Polish Cyprian K. Norwid High school in Villard-de-Lans; Zygmunt Zaleski in the front with a hat
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The Polish government in exile decided to establish a Polish high school in the unoccupied zone. The task was entrusted to Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski, who was a delegate of the Government for Religion, Science and Public Education, and Wacław Godlewski, who was a Polish language teacher at the University of Lille.
1940
- in October, in Villard-de-Lans, a small town near Grenoble, the Polish Cyprian Kamil Norwid High school was established. It was the only legally operating Polish school in the whole occupied Europe.
The school was supervised by the Academy in Grenoble, but the institution was subordinate both to the French and Polish authorities. In November 1942, the so-called free zone was occupied. The Vichy government took over the high school. High school students were recruited in refugee camps, among demobilized soldiers, refugees from camps, and children of refugees. The boys were residing in Villard-de-Lans and the girls in Villard-en-Vercors. The curriculum was based on Polish school programs. The lessons took place in Polish, but great importance was attached to learning French. During the school's functioning, about 200 pupils passed the final exams.
Regardless of his work at the Villard-de-Lans High School. Zygmunt was still involved in the underground resistance movement.
The first German concentration camps were organized in the Third Reich in 1933, before the Second World War. In the following years others camps were created in Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and a women’s camp in Ravensbrück.
Liberation of the Buchenwald camp in 1945
1943
- On March 19th, the Gestapo arrested Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was to meet an English agent who was to provide him with materials and money. Earlier, however, the Englishman had been captured by the Germans, and instead of him a Gestapo agent appeared at the meeting with Zaleski. Zaleski was arrested. The interrogations were accompanied by brutal tortures, during which Zaleski lost his sight in one eye. He did not reveal any name, because he never lost faith in the rightness of the cause.
The Germans sent him to the concentration camp in Buchenwald. Malnourished, struggling against death every day, he did not lose hope. Despite the heavy camp conditions, he did not cease his educational activities. In conspiracy, he led lectures on Polish culture and language for inmates. On April 11, 1945 came the long-awaited time of liberation.
In 1941, threatened with arrest, Maria was hiding in Studzianna and Łęgonice, and then she went to Warsaw, where she lived with her family in a villa in Warsaw's Mokotów district. Maria worked in a sanatorium in Otwock. In July 1941, she undertook a conspiratorial work.
List of prisoners at the Ravensbrück camp
1944
- On April 23th Maria was arrested by the Gestapo
After the arrest, Maria Zaleska was interrogated at Szucha prison, then at Pawiak prison. She didn’t reveal her belonging to the Home Army. Thanks to the bribing of one of the high-ranking Germans, she did not go to the list of hostages, that is people sentenced to be shot, but went to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
In the camp she helped other prisoners, she cured, she kept up her spirits, she did not lose hope, just like her husband. In April 1945, as a result of negotiations conducted by the International and Swedish and Danish Red Cross, approximately 7,500 women prisoners were evacuated to Sweden, including many Polish women, including Maria Zaleska.
In June 1945
in the Republic of Poland, the Provisional Government of National Unity was formed, dominated by communists.
After the end of the war, the Zaleski family returned to France. Zygmunt returned to his cultural activities and in 1946, together with Franciszek Pułaski, they reactivated the Historical and Literary Society in Paris, which took over the Polish Library in Paris. Thanks to Pułaski and Zaleski, in 1947 it was possible to regain part of the collections stolen by the Germans.
Entrance door to the building, where the headquarters of the Polish Library in Paris is located
Soon there was a conflict with the communist government of Poland. A trial was initiated between the Historical and Literary Society (THL) and the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) established after the Second World War by the government in Poland. The PAN took over the assets of the Polish Academy of Sciences gathered before the war, claiming at the same time the rights to the collections of the Polish Library.
The first trial took place in 1955 and ended with a sentence favourable to the Polish government and unfavourable for the THL. The main argument was that the existing Society is not a direct continuation of the nineteenth century THL. The Society filed an appeal, heard in 1959. This time, the final decision of the appeal tribunal was influenced by the result of voting in the French National Assembly, which voted in favour of maintaining the freedom and independence of the Polish Library from the communist government in Poland.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski used all of his influence to make the collections of the Polish Library, heritage of Great Emigration, remain in France.
The struggle for the independence of the Polish Library in Paris was proof that Zaleski refused all contact with the communist government in Poland.
Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was a co-founder of the Polish Association of Former Deportees and Political Prisoners in France.
Until his death he remained the President of the Association, which became part of the International Federation of Former Deported Resistance Movements. Thanks to his efforts, the Poles - political refugees, received German compensation.
Lubicz-Zaleski speaking at a conference in 1960
Despite the exhaustion of his stay in the camp, Zaleski remained very active. In addition to political and social activities, he was also active in the field of education. He also dealt with Polish youth in France, which was reflected in the care of Polish high schools, first in La Courtine and then in Les Ageux.
Under the influence of Buchenwald's experiences, he was strongly involved in the project of a common European future, he saw the need for peace and reconciliation, and he rejected the motives of revenge and humiliation of the defeated enemy in his publications and numerous speeches before the French public. Regardless of his academic work, political and social activities, he continued to work on popularizing Polish language and culture. He published hundreds of articles, reflections, dissertations devoted to Polish, French and European culture, translated dozens of works of French authors, gave numerous lectures, leaving a rich poetical heritage.
Zaleski was the secretary general of the Historical and Literary Society, vice-chairman of the Free International Academy of Sciences and Letters, a member and correspondent of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He conducted an activity promoting the ideas of the European community, stressing that the free Poland should play an important role in this community. In 1957, he was made Commander of the Legion of Honour from the hands of French president René Coty, and in 1959, President Charles De Gaulle made him a Commander with Star.
Ceremony of awarding the Legion of Honour in 1959, from the left: his son Roman Zaleski, Zygmunt, Maria and Claude de Montfort, a family’s friend.
Lubicz-Zaleski speaking at a conference in 1960
1967
- On December 15th Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski died unexpectedly in Paris
After the death of her husband, Maria published a collection of his poems, as well as her autobiographical books: „In the trenches” and „Fiery times”. She kept in touch with her family in the country. She cared, albeit at a distance, that the Zaleski family would still own the house in Warsaw so that it could remain the centre of family life.
In 1980 she came to Warsaw for the first family reunion. After five years, considering her age and progressive illnesses, she decided to return to Poland permanently. She spent the last two years of her life in Warsaw, in her beloved home in Mokotów.
1987
- On July 13 Maria Zaleska died in Warsaw
