Dom Polski in Allenstein / Olsztyn

All the activities of the Polish Committee and the Polish activists aside, the result of the referendum was unequivocal: With 87 % of voters turning out, 363,209 votes (97.86 %) were for remaining in East Prussia and 7,924 (2.11 %) for forming a union with Poland. However, the building, which was now known as “Dom Polski”, or Polish House, remained a centre of Polish activities in Olsztyn and Warmia. However, these activities now transitioned from the political to the cultural. In 1923, the Consulate of the Second Republic moved into a building that had been provided just for that purpose in Kaiserstraße (today Ulica Dąbrowszczaków) and then to Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz, today pl. Konsulatu Polskiego (Polish Consulate Square). However, from 1923, the regional headquarters of the Union of Poles in Germany, which was founded in 1922, was housed in Dom Polski along with a Polish kindergarten and school, a Polish library with reading room, the East Prussia region scout troop, the Polish puppet theatre “Bajka” and, from 1922, the local branch of the Slavic Bank, which had also become the owner of the building. On top of that, the house also accommodated the Hotel “International”, which was later renamed “Concordia. In his early twenties, my Great Uncle Franz Nerowski found a job in the Slavic Bank there and, through the Union of Poles, also met his fiancée Pelagia Stramkowska (1915–2006), who worked in the bookshop belonging to the Polish newspaper in Olsztyn, the Gazeta Olsztyńska, which had existed since 1886. Generally, all Polish institutions and associations in the town worked closely together, which is illustrated by the example of Seweryn Pieniężny junior (1890–1940): He was simultaneously the publisher of the Gazeta Olsztyńska and of its associated book publishing house, Chair of the Union of Poles in East Prussia and board member of the Slavic Bank in Olsztyn.

All cultural and political activities in the Polish House ended – temporarily– in 1939. The Poles in Germany were among the first victims of the Second World War, and the Union of Poles in Olsztyn also became a target of the National Socialists and the Gestapo shortly before and just after the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Dom Polski and Gazeta Olsztyńska were closed down, Seweryn Pieniężny junior was arrested, and in February 1940 he was murdered in Hohenbruch concentration camp. Whilst the Gazeta Olsztyńska building was torn down in November 1940 by the National Socialists as a so-called “eyesore” and replaced by a public toilet (!), Dom Polski survived. The Polish House was handed over to the East Prussian region in Königsberg and its ownership was then transferred to the merchant Julius Lipka. During the war, work began on expanding the existing hotel and on opening it again as “Zum Goldenen Stern”. However, this work was not finished and the building was used instead for housing French and Polish forced labourers. The building survived the conquest of Olsztyn by troops of the Red Army in January 1945 and the subsequent destruction of broad parts of the old town without too much damage. 

After the Second World War and the integration of Warmia and southern East Prussia into the People’s Republic of Poland, the building passed into the ownership of the finance minister. Until 1948, it was the headquarters of the State Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party. After that, it was used as offices by different institutions and as an apartment building until, in 1968, it became the headquarters of the Instytut Północny im. Wojciecha Kętrzyńskiego, (Wojciech Kętrzyński North Institute for Scientific Research (OBN)), named after the Polish historian Wojciech Kętrzyński (1838–1918). The institute, which still exists today, is involved in the research of Polish history in Warmia, the former East Prussia and the entire Baltic area. In 1977, after some toing and froing between the administration, the institute and the inhabitants, the town began pulling down the building. However, the plan to erect a completely new building here with a modern façade was changed so that the original façade of the building was restored, including the eagle statue on the roof that had been lost during the war. However, a new, modern building with a library, reading room and offices was erected behind the façade and provided with impressive mosaics and design elements in the entrance and interior. The new old building was ceremoniously opened in 1982 to mark the 60th anniversary of the referendum. In 1990, after the fall of the wall, the house became the property of the Treasury and in 1998 the property of OBN. A further renovation of the building, which despite the new construction has revealed a number of defects over the decades, was carried out between 1997 and 1999; the façade and the roof were renovated again in 2022.

Today, the Polish House, which played host to a large number of events in 2022 to mark the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Union of Poles in Germany, houses the Scientific Research Centre, along with the regional office of the Institute of National Remembrance and other public institutions. The house with the distinctive eagle sculpture on the roof is still a lively place today and, both inside and out, recalls the moving history of the Polish minority in Warmia and Masuria, as do the memorial plaques on the façade: for example, the one from 1951 which is dedicated to the Polish Consul Bohdan Jałowiecki, who died in Soldau concentration camp in 1941, or the latest from 2022, dedicated to Jan Baczewski (1890–1958), one of the founders of the Union of Poles in Germany. 

Marcel Krueger, February 2023