Witold Żyborski and Jerzy Pol

The photograph was taken at the Atelier für Moderne Photographie Bély Ilisa in the centre of Vienna at 17 Graben Street. It was most probably taken at the beginning of World War I, when both men posing were called up into the Austrian army.

The man seated on the right is Witold Żyborski (1895-1966), called Tole by his relatives. He is wearing a cavalry coat (the loop visible on his chest was used to hang it after taking it off), and in his left hand he is holding a side cap. The second one, on the left, is Jerzy Pol (1888-1935) – one of Wincenty's grandsons, the son of Marek Stanisław and Józefa née Czerwińska, half-brother of Juliusz (1878-1921) and Idalia (1882-1971). In 1911, he became Witold's brother-in-law. We see him as an artilleryman ensign. In front of him is an officer's sabre, model 1904.

It is to Jerzy Pol that we owe the fact that, after an absence of 21 years in Lublin, the descendants of Wincenty Pol returned to the city of his birth. Jerzy, who from 1902 to 1914 worked as a bookseller, then joined the army (from 1918 the Polish Army), became a major and spent the last five years of his life in Lublin. He built a house at Weteranów Street, and it was here that he died suddenly at the age of forty-seven. His funeral ceremony took place in Kraków, and he was laid to rest in Rakowicki Cemetery. The photograph was donated to the collection of the Wincenty Pola Manor House in 2005 by one of his granddaughters, Danuta Słomińska née Chybowska.