House of Zofia and Jerzy Pol in Lublin

A black and white photograph from the first half of the 20th century shows a one-story house at 22 Weteranów Street in Lublin, built by Jerzy Pol (1888-1935), the poet’s grandson. Jerzy – a trader by education – and a participant of the Italian front campaign, in 1918 joined the Polish Army. In 1930, as a major, he was transferred from Krakow to Lublin to the position of the head of the Weapons Depot No. 2 for the Lublin district. Together with his wife, Zofia née Żyborscy (1890-1973) and two children, Jadwiga and Zbigniew, he took up a staff flat on Grottgera Street in his grandfather’s city of birth. Then he purchased a plot of land at 22 Weteranów Street, where he built a house in which the family started to live in 1931 or 1932. The photo shows the south side of the building with a balcony and a ground floor terrace leading to the garden. As Jerzy’s granddaughters recall, Zofia planted beautiful flowers, ornamental shrubs and fruit trees there. The access to the house is through a small porch on the north side. Zofia, after her husband’s premature death in 1935, was joined by her parents in 1939. Michał (1861-1944) and Karolina (1865-1945) Żyborski lived with her until the end of their days (they are buried in the cemetery on Lipowa Street). After the end of the World War II, the ground floor was taken over by Zofia’s son, Zbigniew (1914-1994), who lived there with his family until his death, and in 1976 Jadwiga (1911-2000) moved to the first floor apartment with her husband Czesław Chybowski – whom she married in 1938 – and their children: Danuta, Andrzej, Magdalena and Anna. Jadwiga’s husband built two garages on the plot, next to the house (now, for over twenty years in the hands of strangers). Czesław Chybowski died in 1989. His widow lived there until 2000, and Katarzyna and her husband Paweł Jarecki occupied the ground floor since after the death of her father. After their divorce in 2003, the house passed into the hands of strangers.

For nearly a hundred years, three generations of Wincenty Pol’s descendants grew up in the house at 22 Weteranów Street among the family mementos, a large part of which enriched the poet’s museum in Lublin.

Grażyna Połuszejko