School cap of Helena Czarniecka’s State Secondary School for Girls

The Female Philological High School of Helena Czarniecka in Lublin was one of seven female gymnasia operating in the city. Helena Czarniecka began her adventure with education as a private teacher. She opened the first school, initially a two-class school, on 20 December 1903 at Namiestnikowska Street (now Narutowicza Street). Two years later, she established the Lublin's first private female gymnasium at Bernardyńska Street. The school developed dynamically and had 445 pupils in the school year of 1922/1923. The owner had the custom of greeting the girls at the front door in the morning. 'The headmistress of the school, despite her apparent strictness, had a heart of gold, and you could often see tears in her eyes when it happened to her that the youngsters were not going the right way’, reads a brochure published on the school's thirty-fifth anniversary. In the 1920s, the Helena Czarniecka’s school set up a physical (medical) office and hired a doctor. In the school year 1926/1927, the pupils could already use a new natural science laboratory. It was a novelty in Lublin. In the interwar period, many schools could not boast of their buildings. In this case, however, it was different – since its foundation in 1905, the school was located in the palace buildings, where it operated until World War II. Some of the rooms housed shops and service establishments. In 1927, the property was bought by Tadeusz Karszo-Siedlewski. After after the start of the invasion of Russia in June of 1941, the General Government Board took the palace (which served as a hospital for some time). After 1945, it housed the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party headquarters and workers’ flats. The building has not preserved any traces of its palace splendour (just fragments of architectural decor, paintings, tiled cookers, floors, etc.). There are two staircases in the tower. The only 19th century vaults are at the basement level under the tower. The palace building was adjacent to the former Vetter steam brewery. Currently, the area is administered by the Lublin University of Technology, and the building is to be renovated.