Jagusia and Zbyś Pol

The Museum of Wincenty Pol also holds the family archive of his descendants. A significant part of the resources is photographs. When we look through them, especially at the photographs of the children, the reflection arises that they still had almost their whole lives ahead of them, but they did not know the turn of fate that awaited them. Today, years later, having gotten to know them, we describe them, keeping their memory alive.

In the photo on the left is Jadwiga Polówna (1911-2000), the great-granddaughter of Wincenty the poet-geographer. She was born in Kołomyja, at the home of her grandparents, Karolina and Michal Żyborski. She was educated in Kraków during the Second Polish Republic. Soon after her family moved to Lublin, in 1930, she began studying Polish philology at Lublin Catholic University. It was then that she met her future husband, Czesław Chybowski. They married in 1938 and settled in Lublin. They had four children: Danuta (from whom the Museum received this photograph as a gift), Andrzej, Magdalena Maria and Anna.

On the right side of the photograph you can see Jadwiga's younger brother, Zbigniew Pol (1914-1994). Like his sister, he was born in Kołomyja and spent his school years in Kraków but passed his baccalaureate in Lublin. In 1938, as a cadet, he was transferred to the reserves, and a year later he took part in the defence of Lublin. He was married twice – to Hanna, née Wąsowska, he had a son, Krzysztof, and a daughter, Katarzyna, to Hanna, née Smutek.

The personal details of the third child, seated in the middle, are unknown. We also do not know who took the photograph or where it was taken. The age of those portrayed suggests that it was at the end of the second decade of the 20th century.