| The Katyn relics of Sydney’s Muzeum Wojska Polskiego that were held in storage are now on display at the Anzac Exhibition at the Polish Club Ashfield. The relics, donated by various Polish Families and individuals and kept under a curatorship by the Museum’s former curator, Mieczyslaw Danis, have now been beautifully restored, integrated and organised within a small showcase by Grzegorz Dabrowa, the Art Conservator. Two side urns, holding soil and vegetative matter from the Katyn forest, straddle a central showcase presenting 2 birch twig crosses from Miednoje and Charkow, both of which are marked 1940. The crosses shelter soldier relics such as a belt buckle, button and a piece of cloth from an officer’s uniform. Underneath the showcase are two halves of birch branch from Katyn.
Grzegorz’s volunteer conservation work is greatly appreciated because the relics placed at the centre of the display provide realism and solemnity to the Katyn portion of the Anzac Exhibition, spiritually enhancing it.
In addition to the Katyn relics, Grzegorz permitted SPK and the Polish Club Ashfield, co-producer’s of the exhibition, to display a religious artefact on similar lines to ‘Katyn’; an artefact Grzegorz rescued from oblivion when he purchased it at an auction. The contents in the Perspex case include rosaries and medallions which were the total worldly possessions of a Nowogrodek Sister, one of twelve, of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Sister M. Margaret came to Australia from Poland after WW II.
During 1943 many of the male citizens of Nowogrodek, fathers with families, had been randomly arrested by the Nazi-Germans and faced execution. Sister Mary Stella, the superior of the Congregation expressed the unanimous opinion of all twelve sisters in this prayer: “O God, if sacrifice of life is needed, accept it from us who are free
from family obligations and spare those who have wives and children”.
Soon after, the Nazi-Germans arrested eleven of the Sisters and by the next morning had executed them all; at about the same time the fathers were released and returned to their families. Sister Margaret, who was at a hospital at the time of the arrests, later found the grave and after the Nazi-Germans left Poland the bodies of the Sisters were exhumed and honoured. They were buried in the local church adjoining the cemetery.
Felix Molski
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