Stanisław and Helena Sierakowski. Polish patriots from Waplitz.

Stanisław Sierakowski financed his social and political activities from his own pocket. As a result he and his wife Helena where followed closely by the German authorities for their activities on behalf of Poles in Germany. Indeed, in the second half of the 1990s a German Polish publication appeared containing a comprehensive selection of German documents referring to the status and work of minorities between 1920 in 1939. A lot of space was devoted to the work of the Sierakowskis, not least because it aroused the antagonism of the German authorities, but also of the press.

The second half of the 1920s witnessed the decline of the estate at Greater Waplitz. One of the reasons for this decline was that it was badly run. Stanisław Sierakowski was compelled to take up credits which he was never able to repay. In 1932 he received a demand from the Berlin Zentral-Boden-Kreditbank asking him to repay his liabilities of almost 1,000,000 marks immediately. Subsequently Sierakowski’s rural estate was saved from foreclosure by a loan from the Polish government. Nonetheless this heralded the beginning of the end. The Germans set up a provisional administration and Sierakowski was only allowed to retain a part of his lands, which he subsequently leased. He then took up residence on his Osiek estate near Strasburg, which lay on the Polish side.

After the outbreak of the Second World War and the German occupation of Pommerelia the Sierakowskis were made to leave Osiek and moved to live with their daughter and her husband, Tadeusz Gniazdowski. On 20th October Stanisław Sierakowski was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into prison in Rypin. Not long afterwards his wife, his daughter and son-in-law suffered the same fate. They were shot at the end of October, respectively the start of November 1939. Their burial place is unknown. The epitaphs of the Sierakowskis can be found in the church in Osiek and the former chapel of the family crypt in the church at Waplitz. The complete estate of the Sierakowskis passed into the hands of the Reich. Their art collection, including all the works by European painters, and their stock of books were scattered to the four winds..

Years later Jan Baczewski, a close colleague of Stanisław Sierakowski, recalled his friend in the following words:

(…) He was treasured and admired by Poles in general. He was fully acquainted with all the cares of members of the Polish community, was sympathetic and fair and, where necessary, was extremely resolute.

 

Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, February 2017

Sources (amongst others):

Polen und Deutsche zwischen den Krieg. Minderheitenstatus und „Volkstumskampf“ im Grenzgebiet. Amtliche Berichterstattung aus beiden Ländern 1920-1939, edited for the Institute of Conewtmporary History and the directors of the Polish State Archive, by Rudolf Jaworski and Marian Wojciechowski, 1. half-volume, München 1997.

Magdalena Grzebałkowska,Należy postępować, jak należy, [a conversation with Izabella Sierakowska-Tomaszewska, in:] „Gazeta Wyborcza“, 18.02.2008. Digital edition at: http://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,96856,4924397.html (Last consulted on 27.11.2016).

Janusz Hochleitner and Piotr Szwedowski (eds.),Ród Sierakowskich na ziemi malborskiej, Malbork o.J.

Tadeusz Oracki, Sierakowski Stanisław, Polski Słownik Biograficzny [Polish Dictionary of Biography], vol. XXXVII, Heft 2/153, pp. 303-305.Digital edition at: http://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/stanislaw-sierakowski (Last consulted on 27.11.2016).